Litter Wars

This programme contains some strong language

What's your personal litter bugbear?

Is it a big steaming heap of provocation?

Look at the size of that bugger.

That could be a two-bag job.

That's huge. That's a big dog.

Maybe it's couldn't-care-less, throw-away fag ends

which get you going.

When you smoke a cigarette, where are you putting your butts?

I flick 'em wherever the fuck I want.

You flick 'em wherever the fuck you want? OK.

Or perhaps you're driven by a more specialist passion

to cleanse the streets of stray drinks cans?

I found seven cans just by walking down one road.

And yet, there's a street sweeper there.

That there highlights the amount of litter on the street.

Goes to show, doesn't it?

30 million tonnes of mess is dumped on Britain's streets every year.

It's provoked a small army of litter freelancers,

refuseniks against a tide of refuse.

For the effort I'm putting in here which is hardly anything,

how different will it look when I'm finished? Tell me this is not fun.

All over Britain, from morning till night, they're watching you.

That dog's going to poo now.

They're on patrol and, if you're a dumper, they've got it in for you.

That's horrific. It's just like a toilet.

Your street is their beat.

Meet the litter vigilantes on the front line against filth.

There's a certain view of fairy-tale England

we all hold dear in our hearts.

Nestling beneath the rolling hills, green and very, very clean.

St George's day in Church Stretton.

A litter Lancelot is girding his loins for his twice-weekly

joust against his personal dragon.

John is a retired soldier and teacher.

Now he picks litter unpaid

and if you dump, he will teach you a lesson.

I picked up the rubbish, ran up to the couple and said, "This is yours.

"We don't want it. Please bin it or take it home."

And partly I suppose because they were young and a couple,

and maybe he didn't want to be shown up, he got quite stroppy

and I just stood up and said,

"Look, you either take it home now

"or dispose of it or I'm afraid I'm going to make a citizen's arrest"

which I hadn't a clue how to do.

And, luckily, the bluff worked and he disposed of the rubbish.

That's quite aggressive - "I'm going to make a citizen's arrest."

Well, I know, and it was probably very foolish,

but unless people are brought up fairly shortly and sharply,

I think they'll go on throwing their litter around

and not thinking twice about the consequences.

After the pick comes the reward,

breathing in the satisfaction of preserving that which he holds dear.

The green and pleasant land,

safe beneath the jaws of the eager picker.

It's just such a beautiful vista.

We feel ownership somehow, stupidly, I know,

but I think that's what drives me to look on our town

as something really very special.

It's easy to understand John's motivation.

An old-fashioned sense of civic duty

combined with a passion for beautiful surroundings.

But you don't need to live in an area of outstanding natural beauty

to feel the same sense of ownership.

A busy road past an industrial estate will do.

Hurtling traffic, strolling dogs, their inevitable deposits.

Every morning a genial figure sallies forth from his warehouse

to mount an inspection.

If I go up there on a regular basis, it sounds sad,

but I take photos just for photographic proof it's happening.

As you can see, this is literally about a foot, if that, from the path.

It's all fresh poo, as well. It's done daily all the time.

The lamppost is right next to the path as well.

The path ends just here and it's literally gone there.

If I saw a fella going along taking pictures of dog poos,

I'd think that was a bit odd, you know.

If I don't do it, nobody would do it.

Loads of things in life, if one person doesn't get off their backside

and do something, then nobody will do it.

This is the mantra of the litter vigilante.

It's driven Rik on a two-year mission

to force Cornwall Council to prosecute.

Sometimes I sit there

and watch it from the end of the industrial estate.

Although I've been there when it's been dark at night

and I've been there six o'clock in the morning.

I don't know, they just don't seem to come

when I'm sitting there watching them.

Rik and his neighbours on the estate have a heavyweight solution.

The estate has security cameras which might also deter

would-be foulers.

This camera here is going to get this road here

and it sort of gives us the hedge as well.

Also, luckily, it gives a bit of road

and the verge on the other side as well.

If it does pick anyone up, it will pick them up

in about a 60-yard stretch of the grass verge,

so hopefully, that will be enough evidence to actually prosecute.

-It's a trap.

-It's not a trap.

We've got signs up saying,

or we're putting signs up saying, there's a CCTV monitor in the area

which I've been told we've got to do, so it's not a trap.

It's people breaking the law. They're breaking the law.

They've got to be stopped.

So, if your dog starts walking in a waddly squatty sort of way

on this particular stretch of road, you beware.

You're risking a £1,000 fine.

You might get the impression it's a bit of a man's world being

a litter vigilante, but meet Manuela.

She used to bake pies. Her Bakewell tarts were a speciality.

Retired, she roams the streets of her hometown, picker in hand,

dispensing high fives and hugs.

High heels and sharp words.

What's my job? Putting a smile on your face. That's what my job is.

Your job is to put a smile on mine and you know how you can do that?

What's that?

Make certain you put that bloody rubbish in that bloody bin.

When I first started doing this four years ago,

I was thought of as a little old lady, a little weirdo,

walking round trying to change the world, right?

I may have been a little old lady four years ago trying to

change the world and people think I'm a bit nutty. I'm not nutty.

I will make people aware that if you've bought something

and you've got the money to buy a luxury, just dispose of it properly.

I'm just not going to go away.

Manuela's approach doesn't always fall on fertile ground.

Answer me truthfully.

When you smoke a cigarette, where are you putting your butts?

I flick 'em wherever the fuck I want.

You flick 'em wherever the fuck you want? OK.

It's my chance to talk to people and, at the end of the day,

I love talking to kids and if they turn round and say,

"I don't care" then it's my job to try and make them care.

When at first she doesn't succeed...

-Frazier.

-Yeah?

-I want to hear you say you will never ever drop a cig...

-I will never ever. Man, this is...

-Come on, say it, say it.

-I'll never do it again, all right?

-All right, there you go.

-Cool.

Virtually every day for the last four years, Manuela has been

stamping down on litter,

unpaid and unasked.

Her commitment remains total.

When you spit on there like that,

what ends up happening is somebody comes along, slips on it.

Today's not too bad a problem.

HE LAUGHS

Hey, hey, whoa, Steve, whoa. Listen to me. Listen to me.

-Today's not too bad a problem because we've got rain, right?

-OK.

-But just imagine you've got children sitting in a pram.

-OK.

Children sitting in a pushchair. They see you going...

SHE PRETENDS TO SPIT

What kind of an example is that? It's not a good example, is it, mate?

-I don't care really.

-You don't care?

-No.

-You think that's OK just to do that?

-Yeah.

-I don't.

-OK.

'I'm absolutely certain'

there are people in Andover that think I'm a big pain in the arse.

I'm absolutely certain but I can't help that.

Your litter vigilante does tend to be the sort who gets stuck in

and gets their hands dirty.

Welcome to the local park of Mike Wallace.

-What's that?

-Dog poo here.

Mike is a dog mess specialist. Forensic, discerning in his mission.

So what size of dog is that, would you say?

I would say it's a medium-to-biggish dog. Probably quite a decent size.

Terrier-size, something like that. Can you feel the weight of that?

You don't need many of those in a carrier bag

and you've soon got a fair amount of weight involved.

Over the week, I came three times during the course of the week,

used 16 carrier bags.

Now, I'm not saying they were full carrier bags,

but they were 16 carrier bags of dog poo I took off these two play areas.

I thought you meant 16 little dog poo bags. You mean carrier bags?

-Carrier bags.

-That's disgusting.

-It's totally disgusting. It was lovely.

I smelt it for about a fortnight after that. It was revolting.

Mike likes a team of handy helpers on his daily crusade.

God, strewth! I've done a tonne here.

Done a tonne.

His wife Margaret plays bag woman.

Elaine, his neighbour, and Mike's little dog Henry lend moral support.

It stinks, doesn't it? I know. I know.

There's still some there. I can't get it all off the grass.

There's another one, big, here.

Big dogs.

-You really do get stuck in there, don't you?

-You have to.

When it's in that sort of state, you have to.

It's absolutely...

Oh, god!

But the trouble is, you can't wear gloves properly with it

and it's one of the things that you have to take on board.

They're not alone in their disgust.

Dog mess provokes more letters to councils and MPs

than any other subject.

Back at the ranch, Mike has some serious sorting to do.

-Phew, that whiffs!

-Quite a pungent aroma, that, isn't it?

It certainly gets the old sinuses cleared, yes.

This is the result, look. People's total irresponsibility.

No thought for others. No respect for the environment.

And still it comes.

-How many bags are there?

-I don't know.

I'm going to get them all out and count them in a minute, sir.

One park, one hour, a one-man crusade.

27, not quite as many as I thought

but quite sufficient for an afternoon's work.

27 bags of poo.

Another rewarding day in Borrowash.

Dog fouling is supposed to be a criminal offence

but 27 bags of poo says the locals don't seem to worry too much.

You might think it's up to councils to clear up mess, but there

are places like Manchester's Curry Mile where they struggle to keep up.

They need a helping hand, or two.

The council cannot pick up all that litter.

As you pick it up, so it comes back again

and people come to Rusholme, have food, and literally put it in a bag,

close the bag and throw the bag outside.

You just can't believe anybody could do that where people live.

My husband has walked past somebody who's thrown litter out

and he's just thrown it back in the car, which I think, you know...

He got a mouthful back, but why not?

Fast food debris has become the blight of inner city areas

like Rusholme.

So, a few times a year the residents cry Tally Ho

and hunt down the castaway curries.

We get takeaway containers, cans, bottles,

sometimes food if they've had too much.

You name it, we've come across it.

While the youngsters continue on the main drag,

the two ladies get up to some really filthy stuff in a back alley.

-Is it a bonding sort of thing, this, then?

-Yes.

-Oh, yes, it is.

I think we all do things together

and you asked me earlier whether we'd do this on our own and maybe,

-but I think we do it far more if we do it together.

-Yeah.

And we have regular litter picks and we all get the kids out and do it.

Yeah. In fact, I wouldn't have met you on the park range side

-if I hadn't joined the litter picking.

-No, exactly. It's true.

Is this the birth of a beautiful friendship?

Well, we've got a book club now.

Who would have thought it?

From filth and squalor sprang forth the glory which is

the Rusholme Ladies Reading Club.

Huzzah!

Yorkshire Dales, big skies, bracing fresh air.

Everything a happy couple could want.

Meet Jill, Matthew

and their slightly dolorous-looking companion, April.

All jolly nice, you might think.

But on the unfortunately-titled Shutt Lane

there is a certain something in the air.

The signs warn of mega fines but no one has ever been prosecuted,

even though it's hard by the primary school.

My sister-in-law has got a friend who actually came to the primary school

with their little girl in the pushchair,

and when she turned round to look at her, she just had hands full

of dog fouling, which is really disgusting. Absolutely diabolical.

And there's often piles of poo just from here all the way down.

There's some here.

There's a massive pile here.

It's here.

Again, big piles of it. And there.

Another pile here that looks as if it's been trodden in.

-And we've gone, what, halfway down?

-Halfway through the path.

Must have been 20, 25 piles of poo.

Jill has hit upon an unusual plan.

She's launching one of Britain's most unorthodox

dog poo vigilante campaigns.

So my plan is to return to Shutt Lane

and I'm going to have the whole lane covered in pink flags just

so that people really get a grasp of the volume and I just think a bit

more visually, it will prove a point having a flag in each pile of poo.

It's a more pink and fluffy type of vigilantism, aimed more at pricking

the conscience than confronting, but it is, nonetheless, determined.

There's no stopping her. Once she gets going, that's it.

I can't even stop her. Nothing will stop her at all.

She's very passionate about things, is Jill, very passionate,

and once she puts her mind to it, that's it, really.

Pink flags, makeshift poo bag dispensers

and a man with a four pound lump hammer.

Yes, perfect. Let the flags commence.

Every now and then, we'll put up another sign

and halfway down we'll put another one of those up.

Are you putting all these three down here? There's one.

Gross!

Some of this looks like it's fresh from an hour or two ago.

So frustrating.

I think it's actually, is visually really proving a point

to not even be just over halfway down, for me...

We've run out of flags.

We've completely run out of flags.

53.

That just proves how bad it is. We're not even halfway down.

-Well, we are just over half way.

-That's disgusting.

-It's really bad.

It's just really upsettingly shocking.

Do you know you'll have to do another 50-odd flags.

-Yeah, probably.

-Seriously.

-Probably.

I shall be laminating.

It's disgusting.

Back to the laminator

and back tomorrow to deck out the other half of Shutt Lane.

Other vigilantes seek out more esoteric targets.

Adrian is exclusively a tin man.

A good job since three-quarters of all litter involves drinks cans.

After doing it for about two years now,

you kind of get used to the look of the cans' shines.

It's just instinct.

I know where to look, I know where they're going to be.

It's quite easy for me to find them. It's just the old eye.

Adrian started his can collecting when his wages dipped.

He gets half a penny per tin in supermarket vouchers.

Since then, he's lost his job

but his collecting gives structure to his days and purpose to his life.

Adrian collected his first 18,000 cans on foot.

But, after a year of pounding the Leicester streets,

there came a seismic technological advance.

From two legs to two wheels.

Adrian's collection rate doubled, making him a very happy bear indeed.

I can probably not quite hold as many as what the wheelie bin does

but I can fill it up quicker, come back, offload them, and then refill

it and go out again, so I could do two or three journeys on this.

-So what total are you at now?

-I'm now at 50,000.

Yeah, 50,000 I'm up to now. I've now done exactly 50,000 cans.

50,000 is a landmark in anyone's terms

so today is a big day in Adrian's bedsit.

I've got a meeting with the mayor to see the mayor.

It's nice to actually get.

He's certainly the highest person that's recognised my work so far.

Normally I'm wearing some sort of hi-vis jacket of varying different

colours but today I thought I'd put on the full gear

and look the part if I'm going to meet someone that's pretty high up.

People have pushed me along when I felt

that I was flagging a little big in the 40,000s.

The total never seemed to be moving very fast

but then I managed to push myself a bit harder and was out in the

evenings sometimes till gone midnight collecting cans off the streets.

It's been hard work but I'm really proud of the 50,000.

-Hi there.

-Hello, Peter.

-Adrian, how brilliant to see you, it really is,

with red can in hand as well.

I have to say you've done a wonderful service to

the environment.

-A brilliant service to the city as well.

-I try.

-I got off my own back and just did something.

-Yes.

Where do find is worst, or best, for cans if you're looking for them?

I find them all over the place. You name the place and I'll find it.

I just travel as far and abreast as what I can do until I'm full

and I have to empty them all again.

-Let's go and have a cup of tea.

-Thank you.

Can-man triumphant.

Vigilante as civic hero.

Quiet man walking tall.

In Cornwall, a short distance from the smelly verge,

Rik is watching telly, specifically,

the bit of the estate's CCTV which spills over the road.

It's the object of his closest scrutiny.

I can see a chap walking up here.

Two dogs.

This person, I know who it is.

I recognise the dogs,

so I'll keep an eye out at ten past seven in the morning,

without him knowing I'm watching him and see if he picks up.

The dedication of the true vigilante.

Methodical, precise, determined.

Acquiring targets for an early morning stakeout.

A few days later, half hidden behind a wall...

As people walk out with the dogs, they're walking straight on to

grass and that's where they're fouling the path.

If I'm going to catch them, this is where I'm going to catch them.

The council said if I get evidence that people's dogs are fouling,

they will prosecute.

And if I video somebody and I present that to the council,

hopefully they'll stick to their guns and they will prosecute.

Here's one now.

That dog's going to poo now.

It is a puzzling display.

There's a dog dump.

There's an owner stooping down.

But where, oh, where, does the dog poo go?

She picked the poo up but I'm not sure what she did with the poo.

It is an event worthy of further investigation.

Ha!

And, as you can see, she didn't pick her poo up.

I didn't think she had a bag.

She basically must have seen us

and she bent down and made out she was picking something up

and she had a hanky or tissue or something in her pocket

and she's, er, well, she just left it there.

It is, though, a poo served up with a dollop of doubt.

She's not bang to rights.

One frustrated vigilante.

On Shutt Lane, Jill and Matthew are back with a wag in their tails

and 22 new pink flags.

-That's a fresh one today.

-56.

This is horrific. I was hoping I wouldn't have to use these.

Four-fifths of her way down the lane,

Jill is down to her last flag with no shortage of places to plonk it.

It's just like a toilet.

Seriously, it's a toilet for dogs.

We're not trying to harm anyone. We're just trying to educate people.

Just pick it up and put it in the bin. It's not hard.

Jill's personally affronted

that other dog owners don't pick up like she does

and April looks none too impressed either.

One lane, 75 poos, no more flags.

It's just disgusting. It really is.

It's clear Jill will need to gather support and momentum,

so welcome to the Cross Hills and Glusburn Dog Fouling Action Group.

Your chance to spend 90 minutes on a wet Monday night

talking about dog mess.

We did an exercise to see if we could flag the situation

and there were 75 flags in a 200-metre stretch of Shutt Lane.

-You can kind of tell that it's the same dog.

-Do you think?

Yes, it's the same size, colour.

It's the same dog.

So I reckon that there are fewer dog owners doing it

but they're doing it twice a day.

My dog goes twice a day.

People love talking dog poo.

One of the great unifying points of Middle England.

The same poo repetitively appears in certain areas,

for example, the back of Station Road.

It's a particularly lurid light brown.

THEY LAUGH

And it's always consistently the same

but there's a clue to identifying the perpetrator.

Would you class it as antisocial behaviour?

It's a quality of life issue more than anything, isn't it?

You want to let your kids play out in the playing fields,

things like that, and not come back with dog muck all over them.

-It's something the police have a lot of complaints about.

-Is it?

Every parish council we go to we have speeders and dog muck

and the dog muck is not something we can do something easily about.

I think a good exercise, having put some poo bag dispensers back up there

is to maybe re-run that flagging exercise in six months' time

to see if there's been an improvement.

We can only try our best.

In far west Cornwall, in a scrub of land by a car park,

a litter super-picker is about to really indulge himself.

You've got two bags.

Recyclables in one and then the rubbish

and stuff like that in the other one.

It's a real art form. People think rubbish is straightforward. It's not.

For the effort I'm putting in here, which is hardly anything, right,

how different it's going to look when I'm finished.

The patch of land is called The Leets.

It's not what you'd call a beauty spot.

But it's a favourite haunt of Owen Brains, whenever he's got time out.

Unleashed, he's a one man litter tornado.

Stig of the Dump in his element.

-Are you happy doing this?

-Happy?

I'm as happy as me pig in shit, I suppose, I am.

The simple reason is it's the right thing, you know.

I can see you up there getting stuck in to a load of rubbish.

-I can see flies buzzing round you. I can smell the stuff from here.

-Yeah.

That's not good.

HE LAUGHS

Do you know, when I was a junkie, right,

I lived on Snickers and chocolate milk for two year.

That's no good either, and, do you know what, right,

I like this person far better than I ever liked that person.

It's fair to say Owen has lived a bit of a life.

Litter has, in an odd way, been his redemption.

I like to do stuff that possibly nobody else wants to do.

But you see this as hard.

I see this as half an hour.

-Tell me this is not fun. Course it is.

-That's no fun.

-It is fun.

It isn't. It's getting really,

really filthy with a load of other people's rubbish. That's not fun.

HE LAUGHS

The point being, right, if I didn't do it, who else would?

This is where Owen comes back to.

A bucolic idyll for his wife, George, and their three children.

He's ever so slightly obsessive compulsive, he is.

He can't help it. He enjoys it.

If you've got that kind of energy

and that kind of commitment it's better to be doing something that's

worthwhile than to be out there doing something that's not so nice.

In the summer, Owen makes a living collecting rubbish from festivals.

Through the long winter months he cheers himself up

by picking up litter, unpaid.

Never mind going the extra mile.

He'll do the extra 25 miles

and then lend you a tenner at the end of it, you know.

He's a very good man.

Do you know, until I did this, I didn't have a life. I was nobody.

And now I'm Owen.

I come out of prison, right, and I've got...

I've remarried, I've got three kids, do you know what I mean?

And it's great.

Owen's whole family are super-recyclers.

Four-year-old James, already kitted out in hi-vis.

You might think this kind of life has much to commend it

in a Borrowers-Good Life sort of way but...

We are so permanently skint, it's ridiculous.

We take every day as it comes.

I have MS, so I have good days and bad days.

Other things become less important.

It's less important to us as a family to have all this amazing

stuff because we've got each other and, really, that's all you need.

Which sounds fine for the summer but this is September

and a cold, wet Cornish winter is yet to come.

Andover, sleepy shire town,

where things are about to get a little spicy.

Manuela, on the prowl in raspberry red.

Gentleman with blobby head drops a cigarette.

Apparently cigarettes are just the thing for blobby heads.

In Andover, with Manuela on patrol, this is most definitely a mistake.

-Can I just stop you for one moment, darling?

-Sorry?

Can I just stop you for one moment?

You've just been smoking a cigarette and you dropped it.

-OK, I'll go and pick it up.

-Thank you.

Fair enough. There were quite a few already.

It makes no difference, darling.

I can't stop people that have done it already, but you did do yours.

-I don't know which one.

-This one.

DISTANT SHOUTING

Thank you.

Excuse me, put it in the bin, please, darling. Thank you.

-You do not work for the council.

-He dropped a cigarette butt...

-Do you work for the council, though?

-Have you finished shouting at me?

Did I speak to you? No.

If I dropped something on the floor and you told me,

I'd be rather rude to you, madam.

I'm going to phone up the council on Monday and complain about this.

-Please do, darling.

-It's out of order.

-Right.

You tell them that I saw him throw it on the floor and asked him

to pick it up.

-That's all I did.

-No authority.

-You ring up the council then.

Thank you.

I can hear the two of you shaking your heads.

I think you're doing a ridiculous job, myself.

Tell me why, darling.

-Because I think you're full of your own self importance.

-Right.

Who are you to tell people to pick stuff up? You're absolutely nobody.

-I'm no different to you, no different to you.

-No, absolutely.

-I haven't got rank.

-Please don't touch me.

I haven't got any rank at all. I'm not a police lady.

So why do you run along to people, grab them and say, "Pick that up?"

-You've got no rights.

-Because they dropped it.

-You've got no rights.

-But they dropped it.

-You have got no rights.

-And that makes it OK?

If I want to empty this all over the place, I will do it.

Do you think that is OK?

That is not very nice to talk to me like that.

'She's got no authority'

to tell him to do that.

I find it quite frustrating that she walks around with her litter picker,

"Oh, I'm Manuela, look at me,"

making a big song and dance about it.

If you're going to do something, do it,

but don't expect everyone to go,

"Oh, Manuela, Manuela, you're doing all these great things."

If you're going to do it, do it, but don't expect any praise or anything.

I don't know why. It's not that...

I think it's just that she likes the attention.

If it is attention, it's at some cost.

That's upset everyone.

Right, I think I've done enough for one day. I'm going to finish now.

I need a group hug, darling, cos I'm feeling quite, sort of,

I'm feeling quite shocked, actually.

You're doing the right thing.

You're doing something good and they just don't see that.

Thank you very much indeed. I'm going home.

The way of the litter vigilante can be hard and stony.

It hurts. It really, really hurts.

It shakes me up.

I hope that after four years, the people that approve of what I do and

like what I do outnumber the people that think I'm just a crazy lady.

That's all I can say.

On a cold blue Cornish morning,

at the early hour when dogs emerge,

looking a little bit urgent.

A familiar figure by the A390.

Different outfit, same dog and...

..oh, my goodness me!

Now this is truly an ill-chosen spot for it's in the field of vision

of the glassy eye of Rik, scourge of Cornish dog foulers.

Quick, into the Batcave.

Survey the morning's findings.

There she is there.

You can clearly see her dog stop there.

You can see the dog kicking away there.

And off she goes.

Just walking back down the road.

-It's smack in the middle of your patch, isn't it?

-Yeah, certainly is.

I couldn't have asked for a better picture of her if I tried.

I'm happy with that result. We've got video evidence that her dog fouled.

Twice now we've got her. Hopefully, we'll get her done for it.

What more evidence do you want?

A result, at last.

Later that same day,

Rik betakes himself to the county council offices.

Vindicated, emboldened and bearing incriminating evidence.

This is Charter Way.

This is from the security camera of the business park.

You'll see her walk along here

and then she'll stop.

The dog, you can see it crouched down now.

Afterwards it'll start kicking its legs.

-That's a good sign that they've actually fouled.

-Yeah.

-I've got dogs myself.

-Yeah, I've got two as well.

I'll take a copy and I'll take it with me or you can get it to me.

-That's fine.

-We'll have a look and see where we can go with that.

In the first instance, I will visit the individual

and I will discuss it with them and if they admit, fair enough, our

policy is they get a fixed penalty notice in the first instance.

What happens if they don't accept it?

-We will take them to prosecute.

-Right.

That's where they'll probably say they're not guilty,

and you may be called to give evidence in the witness box.

A circle closed.

A visit from the council, the threat of prosecution, one happy vigilante.

-That's the end of the road for you. That's a result, isn't it?

-Yeah.

The end result will be once I see a prosecution.

This is what I'm out to do.

Get one prosecution and hopefully that one will put a stop to it.

Is that your career as a vigilante over then?

-The early morning stake-outs?

-I walk this...

-The CCTV monitoring?

I walk Charter Way every evening with my two dogs.

A lot of people know me and I know a lot of people.

I've got two boxers so people know I've got two boxers.

I will still be looking around. They won't stop me looking.

If I see dog poo then I'll know that people are doing it again

and I'll be back out there with my camera again.

I will record people and I'll contact the council

and get even more people prosecuted until it gets stopped.

It's got to be stopped and it's got to be stopped now.

Vigilance rewarded.

A tell-tale bounce in Rik's every step.

Under the silvery moonlight of chilly North Yorkshire,

a remarkable transformation is under way.

On Shutt Lane, Glusburn's dogs still busy around in their doggy way,

but lo - the ways of their owners are wondrous changed.

There, glowing in the poo bag,

the thermal signature of collected dog mess.

Owners queuing up to retrieve their leavings.

Poo bags dutifully disposed of in the dog bin.

It's time for Jill to take stock.

A dab hand at design, she's come up with a whole new range of poo flags.

She's heading out to Shutt Lane with hope in her heart.

Last time, she needed 75 flags.

-Today?

-Definitely half. I'll be pleased with half.

If we only do, say, about 30 I'll be pleased but we'll see.

Haven't found one yet. I'm quite pleased.

There's one.

One's quite good. Last time, just horrendous.

It was all constant flag, flag, flag, flag, flag,

so I'm quite pleased with that so far, fingers crossed.

I'm starting to recognise some of these.

Looks like it's the same offender.

22.

It's really pleasing that the community are on board with this now.

22 from 75 is pretty tremendous.

I'm really pleased with that.

Tiny bit of grass verge left.

Don't know if that's 23.

Yep, 23. That's fantastic. Really, really pleased with that.

Absolutely tremendous. It's back to Shutt Lane rather than Shit Lane.

Of such small victories is human progress made.

Here is September's grim harvest.

26 pink flags in one small and malodorous patch.

Here's exactly the same view three months later. Just six flags.

Take a bow, Jill, but do watch out where you're standing.

Two degrees above freezing.

Trees down to their bare bones.

The Borrowers in winter.

No money, no work,

scrabbling through the hard miles of the good life.

Go on, do as you're told.

'It is a bit soul destroying, this spring scene.'

Cos of George's MS, we get Disability Allowance,

and I'm a carer so we get Carer's Allowance,

so I can't really do anything and it's really frustrating.

It's like Boys From The Blackstuff for me.

I'm so desperate, do you know what I mean?

The reality is, why won't anyone...

give us a job. What do you do?

I don't know what to do, you know what I mean?

I don't know what to do.

Whenever he needs to cheer himself up, Owen organises a litter-pick.

He's drafting in a work party for The Leets.

Things have piled up rather since his last visit.

The words "community litter-pick"

probably conjure of visions of red-trousered, Rotarian-type fellas.

Owen's team are cut from rather a different cloth.

Right, youse three, James, as well, have got the wheelbarrow.

We've got some litter picking tools, right?

Some things Owen's family can't do anything about

but litter on The Leets is something they can change.

Pickers of all ages and sizes...

..each with their own motivation.

That might be finding rabbits or it might be something more complex.

I'm a carer, so this lets me let off steam.

Some days I'm breaking up furniture

or just going round helping people out.

It's different to what I've ever done.

Always worked up until a few years ago.

My wife took ill, so this is a let-out.

I get these odd phone calls in the middle of the night.

"Can you meet me in this beauty spot or it will be when we finish?"

And, yeah.

It takes out any pent-up anger indoors.

I can take it out on rubbish.

HE LAUGHS

What do you make of Owen then?

-He's a loon.

-He's a loon?

A complete loon, but with a great heart.

Two hours' work. 13 people helping out.

It all adds up to quite a haul.

What's the most disgusting thing in there?

-Well, he's standing behind us at the moment(!)

-I'm here.

THEY LAUGH

Yeah, nails.

-The johnnies.

-Yeah.

Bag o' crap.

-Shitty wet wipes.

-Yeah.

From one patch of land in one morning,

37 kilos of cans, bottles and cardboard, 24 kilos of glass,

40 kilos of steel, five kilos of electrical stuff,

167 kilos of landfill junk.

The Leets is once again a sylvan glade.

A fit place to walk your dog, take some air.

How often a year do you do this?

Three times, four times a week. Different places like this.

-Four times a week?

-Yeah, do you know what I mean?

If I'm not in the house with George, I've got to be doing something.

-Is anyone paying you to do this?

-No.

-It's virtually a full time job.

No, it's Cameron's big slave society.

I'd love a job.

I want to get a job doing this, tackling this,

and going into communities where it smells of piss and dried piss.

That's the places I want to tackle. I want that.

One of the fellas I was talking to there, Sam, said he does it

because it's a way of letting off steam from his time as a carer.

Yeah, it's the same thing as me. You've got to work your exercise off.

You know, I'm only 46 and George is 41,

but I still feel I've got lots to give.

MOBILE PHONE RINGS

-Sorry.

-That's for you.

-Yeah, I know. It's a pain in the arse.

-It's the wife again.

-Better answer it then.

I'll ring you back in two seconds, love. All right?

All right, bye.

Do you worry about the wife?

Yeah, I worry about George, you know what I mean?

I'm only here for a short period of time.

I'll only pass through here once and that's it, you know.

That's all you can do, really.

22 months and 50,000 cans do tend to leave a bit of a mark on a man.

It's now become part of my life.

I can't not go in the street without thinking I've got to pick that can up

but I'm proud of what I've managed to achieve from it.

My own little idea, I started going,

and I followed it through

and I fully intend to carry it on.

-MACHINE:

-'Welcome to Tesco Recycling Centre. One item at a time, please.'

Adrian's 50,000 cans have earned him £250 in vouchers.

His satisfaction remains undimmed.

This is the end journey for the cans, this is, for me.

This is the last time I see them.

I know they're all counting towards my next goal now

which is 100,000, which is the next one I'm aiming for.

So it's great seeing them go down there.

Validation.

Purpose.

Recognition.

Funny things to find in a far corner of a car park

but there you go.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd