Our Dirty Nation

Cleaning up Britain's rubbish costs us more than a billion pounds a year. Hardly surprising, given we drop five times more litter today than we did in the Sixties - much of it as a direct result of our fondness for fast food, soft drinks and sweets. Yet while we seem unwilling to pick up after ourselves - or our pets - other people's discarded rubbish still gets many hot under the collar.

In an authored report for Panorama, journalist, Labour peer and Sixties icon Joan Bakewell argues that we all need to take more pride in our surroundings and examines whether enough is really being done to clean up. She tours the country meeting those groups trying to turn back the tide of rubbish, confronting the litter louts and even takes up her luminous spray paint to go walkies with the dog mess patrol.