The Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2000 makes littering illegal and unfortunately the police have neither the time nor the inclination to pursue what they consider to be low-level misdemeanours.
If a piece of litter has a telephone number or e-mail address on it make that call or send that e-mail. And don't forget to take whatever steps you might consider necessary to protect yourself.
This is an example of such an e-mail and do please read it carefully:
Dear Mr XXXX,
I'm wondering whether you can help as I'm trying to locate the owner of
a bag that was left close to the junction between Bridge End and Swan's
Court just off the A246 near Gomshall.
The bag is from Jefferson's Confectioner and contains what appear to be some
important papers giving details of some of the work that the owner of
the bag had evidently recently been doing. I'm suspecting these papers
may be important as they carry a number of telephone numbers and e-mail
addresses of people who may be contacts or customers.
Surprisingly, the bag also contains the remnants of someone's lunch, a
Sprite bottle and a large brown turd.
Perhaps, before I follow up on the other contact details you could let
me know whether the bag is yours.
If it isn't yours then maybe you could also contact me as you will be
eliminating yourself from the line of inquiry and it must belong to
someone who has irresponsibly disposed of your business card in the bag.
Yours,
XXX
Oops! The litter is an address label. What a give away:
Tell us about how you acted on evidence by sending an e-mail to: