WITH reference to 'why can't people look after our country?', Craven Herald letters, March 21); my wife and I lead the litter picking group in Giggleswick, 'Pride in Our Parish'.

We have 18 members who patrol many of the footpaths and lanes in the parish every month. We receive countless number of thanks from residents, walkers and cyclists as we collect litter. We have even received a round of applause from one couple.

We agree about the discarding of litter as motorists and their passengers progress along the A65 as outlined in the letter. However, our litter picking group does not clear the A-roads as to do so would be dangerous without proper traffic management.

Every month we collect in excess of ten sacks of litter from the paths, lane verges and play areas. It is disturbing the number of glass bottles that are found, some smashed. On one occasion, near an outlying village, a resident spoke to us after seeing the piles of heavy litter we had found and offered to collect it in her car and put it in her recycling collection.

The people who discard litter in the countryside obviously don't understand the damage to wildlife they are causing; the possibility of causing fires in the summer caused by pieces of broken glass magnifying the sun's rays; the damage to cattle consuming shards of glass when bottles are lobbed into fields and accidentally broken by farm vehicles.

As members of our local community, we request those in cars to please take their litter home and deposit it in their appropriate bins.

Tony Carroll (Pride in Our Parish litter picking group)

Giggleswick