That is when Australians set out to clean up what so many have thrown down all year.

They throw it out of vehicles, they throw it down walking, they throw it down as soon as the article is finished with.

The roadside outside the school close to our home was clean except for the odd litter thrown from vehicles which we cleared up.

Now that the school year is operating my wife and I filled a large kitchen tidy bag with litter, tossed down it would appear by parents arriving early outside the school complete with fast food and drink for themselves or their offspring when they arrive.

The dirty pigs then drive off leaving the empties behind between the ubiquitous cigarette butts.

Walking the dog takes us along many streets and roads in the East Orange area, and two roads in particular going out into the hinterland are littered with rubbish to a point where it looks like the vehicle travellers have consumed the food and drink bought in town so out the window it goes.

Then there is the broken glass; apparently thrown down and shattered by poor pathetic morons whose crowning achievement in life is to smash every bottle they have consumed or come across.

We at times come onto a spot just out of town where someone has pulled up, dumped a boot or trailer load of household or garden waste, then driven off.

They might be saving some money by trashing the roadside but I don’t know how they live with themselves.

One always hopes that after this cleanup there will be less next year but the sad fact seems to be that if it is finished with dump it; doesn’t matter where, let someone else worry about it, let council pick it up.

We have become a very lazy and selfish society.

Bruce C Martin,

Orange