Britain needs to tidy its room
Time for a national clean-up
According to the historian al-Tabari, upon conquering Jerusalem the Caliph Umar took it upon himself to tidy up the 35-acre area surrounding the Temple Mount. This had been left covered in rubbish by the Byzantine authorities, as a deliberate way of humiliating the Jews, and the new ruler is said to have begun to clear the garbage with his own hands, declaring ‘Oh people, do what am I doing!’ Ancient history is full of campaigns of mobilisation among the populace, with residents encouraged to take up defence of this city, but this must be the first (or one of the first) examples of a public litter-picking campaign.
Monarchs have from time-to-time berated city authorities for the state of their streets, one of the first known being Edward III’s instructions to the City of London after the Black Death complaining about the filth. But the first state to instigate a national clean-up campaign was arguably Singapore, from where I’m writing now.
Other countries had voluntary anti-litter movements, including Keep Britain Tidy, which developed out of the Women’s Institute in 1955, while Keep America Beautiful scored some success with its famous ‘Crying Indian’ advert.
But the Asian city-state was the first to instigate a national campaign, in 1968, with Lee Kuan Yew’s ‘Keep Singapore Clean’ scheme. Citizens were urged to keep bus stops and toilets free of rubbish, and for a further campaign in 1976 teachers, pupils and parents were even encouraged to tidy up schools over the weekend. It’s still an important consideration for the authorities, and there are signs everywhere urging people to keep the place clean. Lee was so concerned with standards of cleanliness that he demanded a weekly report from Changi Airport about the state of the toilets.
A zero-tolerance approach to littering went hand-in-hand with the deliberate cultivation of a green aesthetic, turning Singapore into a ‘tropical garden city’.
In his memoirs From Third World to First, Lee expanded on how important the appearance of the environment was to a country’s health and wealth, writing that ‘after independence, I searched for some dramatic way to distinguish ourselves from other Third World countries. I settled for a clean and green Singapore.
‘I recounted how I had visited almost 50 countries and stayed in nearly as many official guesthouses. What impressed me was not the size of the buildings but the standard of their maintenance. I knew when a country and its administrators were demoralized from the way the buildings had been neglected - washbasins cracked, taps leaking, water closets not functioning properly, a general dilapidation, and, inevitably, unkempt gardens. VIPs would judge Singapore the same way. We planted millions of trees, palms, and shrubs. Greening raised the morale of people and gave them pride in their surroundings. We taught them to care for and not vandalise the trees.’
Lee planted his first tree in 1963 and would ceremoniously plant one each year for the next four decades. He even set up a department to care for the trees, and came to take a keen interest in the subject, developing opinions on which trees better suited particular surroundings; besides the small-scale gardens which line the streets here, there are signs informing passers-by about the species, for those interested.
A clean environment was important for the nation’s health, Lee reasoned, but it was also important to appearances and confidence. His belief was that if a city was clean and green, it would look richer and therefore it would also become richer, by attracting investors. That seems obviously true, and the converse is surely true too; the aesthetic of poverty creates poverty.
One of the very notable changes of my adult life is how much more rubbish there is almost everywhere in Britain; not just in urban high streets lined with take-aways, but also on the side of motorways and even on quiet country roads. I’m perfectly willing to believe that my pessimism screens out a lot of progress, but littering has got much worse and it adds to a sense of enshittification in public life.
