The crisp packet lazily meandered across the street, under a grey and gloomy sky. As it did so, it met an empty coke bottle on a similar journey.

For Mark, it was an irritant. A visual scar on the landscape of his morning walk and he was annoyed with it.

For more years than he had cared to count – and about five times a week – Mark did his regular walk in the country.

Whilst ‘country’ was the best way he could describe it, and perhaps over-egging it’s natural quality, it served its purpose for Mark as he got out into the sort-of fresh air.

In truth, he was able to negotiate the new housing estate; the bridge over the motorway and, bisected only by 600 yards worth of protected meadow, the further new housing development beyond.

He remembered when there were no houses there; no playground; no substation and pretty well no litter at all.

It drove him crazy to find that what was left of his little piece of peace in the world; his almost daily escape from his normal life, could be ruined by people whose motives and attitudes he simply could not relate to.

But Mark was a bit of a coward.

Indeed, although he had never seen any incidents where litter and other debris was actually being discarded (how did they manage it – did they simply come along overnight and do their business in the dark, he wondered?), he did not think that he would have the courage to complain directly to them.

No, there were too many incidents in the papers of people being turned into lifetime cabbages because they spoke out of turn and some yob had given them a beating for Mark to say a word. For this he slightly reprimanded himself sometimes.

He was also a realist. Mark knew that even should he manage to gird himself up to speak to one miscreant, there were a hundred already able to take that person’s place and continue the dirty work.

So, just three months ago, Mark decided on revolutionary idea that would solve most of his own problems. At least for a while anyway.

Mark decided that he would pick up all the litter that he could see on his walk.

Now, on the one hand, he felt this was an imposition on him that to the vast majority of people, would only result in one question, “Why?”, but he was undeterred.

Mark felt that even though it might not stop most people behaving badly and him seeing little change, there would be several benefits to come from his decided course of action.

But it was important in Mark’s mind to be clear. This was his own doing.

It was only about him and his feelings and his expectations for anyone else to change were absolutely zero. He recognised that however he approached this issue, he would never be able to convert those people who would drive by and sling their rubbish out of a car window. Nor could he have much direct impact on a lazy homeowner with an old mattress dumped off the back of a 1992 Nissan pickup.

What he could do was not the ideal answer to the problem that he and others might be faced with, but it would mean that he could take his nature walk without being frustrated every day, thereby ruining the whole effect.

Now there was quite a lot of litter, Mark realised as he carried our a recce on his first day after realising that this was going to be his duty in life. He believed that there would be a number of bags of rubbish that he could create, but that he could not do this all in one go.

Or rather he could take a day off and attempt to collect everything in the back of his old van for a day, but he didn’t think he wanted to stomach a whole day of picking up after other people. That was a step to far in this activity of his, which for most normal people, was a step too far on it’s own.

So he came up with a little plan.

He would pick up a bag of rubbish every day until he couldn’t see any more rubbish or litter at all. He would take a single carrier bag from the previous week’s supermarket shop and fill it; bring it home and deposit in his own domestic bin, which was collected every other week, because of funding cuts.

If there were any bigger items, Mark would contact the council, or the building company responsible for developing the site, for he had seen a sign saying that, as part of their planning application, had agreed to keep certain parts of the are clean and tidy.

He would pester them a bit.

On the first day, Mark began to realise the size of the problem. It was a bit bigger than he thought, yet for each bag that he brought home over subsequent days, he felt a little closer to his goal.

It took him ten carrier bags over seven days to clear 99% of the area and Mark was almost happy. He sometimes managed two bags in a day, because he often found an extra bag as he sought out the visible rubbish, making good use of the opportunity as he went.

Instead of simply putting the rubbish in the bins, Mark lined then up on the patio of his garden and took a photograph, posting it on his blog and sending a copy of the results of his labours to the local paper.

Once the job had been tackled initially, Mark was able to keep on top of newly deposited rubbish by taking a bag with him just once a week and even then, he was surprised how little he managed to find some weeks.

For Mark, although it was sometimes quite distasteful to pick up some of the detritus of life that found its way in his path, the problem that he had come across and that was spoiling his leisurely routine was solved.

Mark had realised that by seeing what he could do about it and acting was far more useful to him personally than wringing his hands and getting angry about what other people did. People who he could realistically expect to have little impact on whatever he did.

Far better, he was able to solve his own problem by taking direct action for himself. He did not feel that this was the most ideal solution – that would be where people had a respect for society not to disfigure there own landscape and that of others. But that could not be his problem.

For Mark was a simple person and did not feel that had the influencing skills to make up for a society that was in caring and disrespectful.

Whilst Mark was nothing special in the big picture of a world of politics and statesmanship, nor did he want to be. In his little corner of the world he had sought out what he could influence and changed it.

And that made Mark a very special person indeed.