At a time when we should be making the most of the summer sunshine and enjoying the great out doors we often find our expectations of what our environment should be like, leads us to have a less enjoyable experience when the reality kicks in. Opportunities to take the dogs or kids for lovely long summer evening walks become exercises in side stepping deposits of dog waste, skirting around spilt chips complete with wrappers and ketchup, or hopping over broken glass left from the previous evenings activities. Trips to the playground are spoiled by graffiti covered slides or vandalised swings. The increasing evidence of anti social behaviour is making parents keep their children away from these facilities in their droves. A knock on of his phenomenon is going be the continued increase in childhood obesity as more and more kids will spend their time indoors (where it is safer) in front of televisions and video games. The question needs to be asked ... 'who is to blame for a Northern Ireland where out of doors can be likened to a litter style obstacle course?#39;.

It is all very well to lay the blame at the door of councils and other government agencies and say they should be providing better cleansing services, or have more pro active units to reduce anti social behaviour and crime. If you think this perhaps you are right. But wouldn't it be more appropriate to lay the blame squarely at the door of those elements of society that are ruining the enjoyment of our communities for the rest of us. And in doing so it is time we took responsibilities for the areas in which we live and work and stop the current blame culture we seem to have adopted from our American allies. We ourselves can take responsibility for our communities. This year has seen the BBC launching an important 'Breathing Spaces' initiative encouraging people to adopt areas of land for wildlife and increased biodiversity. TIDY Northern Ireland welcomes this initiative as a starting point to reverse our lacks environmental attitudes. Our own initiative TIDY Community works to change people's attitudes to their communities and empower them to achieve positive long-term changes. It is not to late to make this change and we all have an important role to play.

Transforming the degradation of our local environmental quality is the easiest (and most cost effective) change to make. It is not as complicated as reducing the hole in the ozone layer or reversing global warming. It is easier than stopping the polar ice caps from melting and sea levels increasing. It is even more achievable for each of us than making sure we meet our obligations under the European Union Waste Management Strategy. It is the simplest and most noticeable impact we can make on the environment. STOP DROPPING LITTER, STOP VANDALISM, STOP COVERING OUR URBAN ENVIRONMENT IN GRAFFITI AND FLY POST AND STOP BLAMING EVERYONE ELSE FOR OUR PROBLEMS!

No one ever admits to littering and yet 90% of the streets are covered by cigarette butts, crisps wrappers and chewing gum. If people didn't drop it (as they claim) how did these items mysteriously get there? Have we secretly been invaded by gum spitting, fast food guzzling aliens intent on destruction of our planet through their subliminal littering habits? I very much doubt this, but am always open to the potential existence of friends from distant galaxies. I think the truth is more likely to be we have developed our own disgusting littering habits, that we are too embarrassed to admit to, but yet we don't feel the inclination to change our behaviour. To instantly save £10 million in Northern Ireland all it takes is for individuals to think before they drop that next crisp wrapper and instead of dropping that cigarette butt on the pavement- don't! Stub it out and put it in the bin.

Lets try to increase pride in Northern Ireland and call everyone to make that one simple change to create an environment that will have tourists and investors shouting about the virtues of our cleaner, safer, greener country.