The Impressions we Leave on Ilford
What comes to mind when Ilford is mentioned? Ilford is a central hub for business, shopping, and get-togethers. With Ilford having a population of over 168,000, the town centre is always brimming with people. Busy people roam through the streets in a rush and others, with the sole purpose of enjoyment, stroll the streets in luxury. With the passing of day and night the streets are left with the impressions of hundreds of people. Unfortunately, these impressions can also come in the form of crisp packets, tissue, plastic bags, cigarettes, chewing gum, and much more. Our streets are being tainted by rubbish, toxified by trash!
This is not only the case in Ilford town centre, but in several parts of Ilford: Hannah Hekim, a local resident of Ilford, (10-15 minutes from Ilford Town Centre) said that there have been multiple cases of "fly tipping" outside her house and "it's disgusting" since the rubbish does not belong to her, yet her family has to deal with the consequences. Another resident of Ilford (anonymous) reported that "there simply aren't enough bins in the area! We weren't provided with a wheelie bin so we have to keep rubbish bags outside our house, where foxes tear them up at night- it just leaves double the mess!".
One clear issue is that there aren't enough bins outside of the town centre. Another issue, as Karita Wangchareonrung stated, is that "a lot of high school kids throw rubbish on the ground and walk away", unconcerned with the mess that they make. According to this statement, there is a need to spread awareness about littering to the younger generations in order to reduce, and perhaps even prevent, the build-up of rubbish on our streets.
There are so many alternatives to littering: for chewing gum there are posts to stick the gum on, yet people spit their gum onto the floor; for tissue and crisp packets there are rubbish bins (at least in Ilford Town Centre), yet people still throw them onto the ground; there are cigarette disposal sections in most bins around Ilford Town Centre, yet multiple times I have witnessed people smoke at bus stops and drop the cigarettes onto the ground right next to the bin as soon as a bus arrives.
With a lack of awareness, the efforts put in the Town Centre to handle littering cannot be fruitful- there are simply too many people who ignore disposal facilities where they are provided, and too little disposal facilities where people need them in order to throw rubbish away properly.
Therefore, in order to leave less of a negative impression on the streets of Ilford, residents of Ilford must spread awareness about littering- if you see someone litter, tell them it's wrong! Also, each and every single one of us must make sure that we are using appropriate disposal facilities and asking authorities to provide more bins where needed. In this way, we can clean up the rubbish we have left on the streets of Ilford and lift the shadow of negative impressions created by littering and fly tipping. We should aim to only leave good impressions on this busy and phenomenal place.
By: Mahnoor Shoaib, Woodford County High School
