Bill Bryson is qite right. Britain is a very dirty place, from a litter point of view. There is a comprehesive school not far from where I live and the kids from this come over a path, across a field, to a local shop where they buy sweets, pot noodles, bottles of pop and whatever else takes their fancy. They consume these on their way back to the school and then throw the packaging/containers away into the hedges or alongside the path. There are waste bins provided along the route but the kids just refuse to use them. Complaints to the Head at the school has little effect. If you happen to be walking on this path when these litter louts come along and you say something to them about picking up the stuff they are throwing away you get a mouthful of abuse.
Another side road through trees and towards a small plastic processing factory is a source of "fly tipping". We get discarded white goods, paper, bricks and other builders rubble all dumped alongside the road and into the hedges. Last week I found a load of plastic coating from some copper wire dumped in a car park just off this road where someone had stripped it for sale, I assume.
I have visited many other countries in my time and Britain today comes out very high on the "Scruffy" scale. Switzerland, Germany and the USA are generally far cleaner while Spain, Portugal and Malta come out as the dog poo capitals of the world. Normal rubbish like the stuff I have described is less in these countries though than I find in Britain.
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