In Tuesday's paper we reported on a union survey that came up with some pretty dull statistics.

Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely nothing against trade unions.

But if they had popped a tenner in the post and sent it to me, I could have told them we live in a dirty, scruffy town.

I live in a part of town with a high school – sorry, community college – on my doorstep.

With that comes the attendant corner shops and takeaways.

And they present the mindless in our population – not, I hasten to add, a group restricted to those of school age – with the chance to litter our streets.

The corner shop has a huge bin outside, but no one seems to want to use it.

And the street and pavement outside my front door are a constant mess of crisp packets, chip wrappers and the "combined deposits of litter and detritus that falls below an acceptable level", as the GMB report so eloquently put it.

There are, of course, a number of factors which do not help the situation.

Within a half-mile radius of my house, the only bin is the aforementioned one outside the shop.

There simply are no others.

The way in which large wheelie bins are emptied causes some of our household waste to hit the streets.

And that means our street cleaners – yes, they do exist and I see them in my neighbourhood regularly – are fighting an uphill, if not losing, battle.

But none of the above can be blamed on the sheer stupidity of some people.

Leaving another local shop the other day, I saw one customer leaning on the top of a huge litter bin as he tried his luck with several lottery scratchcards.

None of them, apparently, bore fruit. They were all ripped up amid a torrent of explectives and then the resulting detritus – what a great word! – was thrown into the air.

While at the same shop, at least three people bought cigarettes and were so keen for a "hit" the packaging was removed and thrown on the car park.

And another customer drank a can of pop outside the door before dropping the empty can on the floor.

What can be done about such action?

It doesn't matter how many signs warning about potential fines are placed, these people are never going to be prosecuted en masse.

Would I take a day off work to testify against someone who was guilty of littering?

Not likely!

But if I ever find the dog owner who allows most mornings his pet to urinate on my car wheel – and then do the rest of its business on the pavement – it would be a very different story.