Rubbish Ruth completes country wide litter tour

An 81-year-old anti-littering campaigner has travelled across the country encouraging people to pick up rubbish rather than dropping it.

Ruth Major from Redruth, Cornwall visited all 39 BBC radio stations in England, across 55 days armed with a litter picker and a bus pass, collecting litter and encouraging others to do the same.

Affectionately known as Rubbish Ruth, she has collected litter for 10 years.

She said: "We live in a beautiful country and we should be so ashamed of what's happening in it. We have stunning countryside, probably some of the best in the world, and it's just so blighted that I want everybody please to try and do their bit, by picking up rubbish when they see it."

Over the course of the tour Major travelled on public transport using her bus pass on 212 buses.

Major said: "I decided to call this campaign Beautify Britain and I want to make it [the country] more beautiful".

Everybody she spoke to she urged to "pick up a piece of litter that's in the way and put it in the bin".

"I'm hoping people listen to my suggestions and we do something about it."

Major said while on the trip she saw "massive amounts of rubbish" on every single A road and motorway verge.

She said litter pickers like herself cannot access those kinds of road and she admitted she was worried what they will look like in 10 years time.

Major said she was "very concerned" about amount of litter across the country and "things are getting worse".

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