THE North-East is crawling with litter. From dog muck to discarded fridges, our towns, villages, country lanes, motorways and railways are literally littered with the stuff.

Drive down the recently refurbished A1(M) and you can see mile after mile of strewn litter – the usual fast food outlet wrappers, carrier bags, beer cans and nappies are here, there and shockingly, everywhere. And that’s on a new bit of road.

Next time you drive to Durham Tees Valley or Newcastle airport, you will see on the grass verges a riot of discarded detritus. And that’s the first impression many visitors get of our region. Welcome to Great Britain. It must a great shock to many of our Continental cousins as the streets of Holland, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland are spick and span compared to our supposed green and pleasant homeland.

Those who drop rubbish will increasingly be hit in the pocket. People dropping litter, including from vehicles, face increased on-the-spot fines of up to £150 as new penalties come into effect this month.

Heavier fines might have an effect, but we doubt it.

It isn’t enough to label this a council, national government or fast food firm problem. The majority of us who care about our environment have to stand up and be counted. We need to make it part of our national DNA that dropping litter simply is not acceptable.

Only a change of attitude will work, and that means confronting the litter louts and shaming them publicly.