A MOTHER-OF-THREE has backed calls for residents of Dorchester and surrounding areas to clean up their acts.

Campaigners from the Stop the Drop anti-litter group addressed members of Dorchester Town Council last month to urge them to recognise the town’s problem with rubbish.

Now Alex Emery, from Lower Burton just outside the county town, has also been angered by the amount of litter she is seeing in and around the town and is calling on residents to take action.

She said: “It makes me so cross.

“It just seems people don’t give a damn at the moment and there just seems to be litter everywhere.

“I just want to make people conscious and think a bit more about what they are doing.”

Alex, who used to work as a litter picker at the Viridor refuse facility at Crossways, said some areas she found particularly bad were the roadsides out to the north of Dorchester towards Stratton.

She said: “I don’t know if it’s just people chucking it out of their cars or what.”

Alex, 31, has lived in the area for around 20 years and said it seems to be getting worse.

She said her message to people would be to take pride in the appearance of their county.

Alex said: “I would just say to people this is your county, keep it tidy. It’s not only a danger to the environment, animals and wildlife around, it’s also pretty grubby to have to look at it.

“I know there are people employed to go round cleaning up but people shouldn’t be dropping it in the first place.

“It’s not someone else’s responsibility to pick it up.

“People should get their acts together.” Alex said she backed the calls from the Stop the Drop group for people to take responsibility to clean up Dorchester.

Bob Kerr from the Stop the Drop campaign said he was glad others in the town were speaking out over litter problems and were supportive of their efforts.

He said: “I’m delighted people are taking notice now of litter about the town. We all have a responsibility and a civic duty not to litter.”

Mr Kerr added: “Apart from hopefully changing attitudes of people, we also want to encourage the police and other duty bodies including councils to enforce existing litter legislation.”