Does America need a ‘Tidyman’ character?

March is a good month to focus on putting an end, once and for all, to pollution, wouldn’t you say, ol’ chap?

Indeed, replied Bear Gryllis, a contemporary British icon, who is leading the charge across the pond to “stop the devastation being caused by littering. Too many beauty spots are now scarred by rubbish,” he attests.

Gryllis, an adventurer and television producer, recently wrote an essay for The Daily Mail, a tabloid published in London, to endorse and enlist support for the Great British Spring Clean, scheduled for March 22-April 23.

The event is sanctioned by the ongoing “Keep Britain Tidy” anti-litter movement. The familiar green ambassador, “Tidyman,” has undergone a makeover. He is now both animated, life-size and “out and about” mingling with the populace.

British television journalist Kirstie Allsopp said Tidyman “symbolizes the action we should all be doing – putting our rubbish in a bin”…to make Britain “a cleaner, more attractive place. I am delighted to have had the opportunity to give him a hug!”

(Inquiring minds want to know…is Gryllis available for hugging as well? The official response: “Mum’s the word.”) Dagnabbit all.

Gryllis’ celebrity status is enhanced by his designation as “Chief Scout of the United Kingdom and Overseas Territories,” the top honor awarded by the British Boy Scouts Association.

Growing up in the 1980s on the Isle of Wight in the English Channel south of the big island, Edward Michael Gryllis said his father would take him on adventures to climb the cliffs around the coast.

“I have strong memories of it being such a beautiful place – but I also remember the litter that people would leave behind. As a child, it made me sad that people would want to ruin the island like this.”

“I’ve always felt strongly against littering. We were brought up to be respectful, whether it’s to your friends, family or the environment. Those things mattered much more to my parents than good school reports. Luckily!”

Gryllis shared: “Now that I’ve got a family of my own (three sons aged 10, 12 and 15), I’m even more conscious of the need to be vigilant about recycling, picking up litter and trying to set a good example. Kids always learn more by looking at how we live than by what we say.”

“Making solid laws about single-use plastic is going to be key to all our futures. It just needs politicians to be bold, stand up and do the right thing.”

For his television projects, Gryllis said his team “does its best to ensure litter-clearing is non-negotiable on all our film shoots – wherever we are in the world. We’ve got a new survival-adventure race show, Eco-Challenge (out on Amazon next year), and the competitors will be under strict rules to carry all their rubbish with them.”

“We’ve made this aspect a crucial part of the race, so each team has to think laterally to respect Mother Nature and leave the terrain exactly as they found it. I like the phrase: ‘Leave only footprints and take only memories.’”

Gryllis also wrote: “We all need to think of ourselves as stewards and custodians of this Earth, to look after it and nurture it for the future. I am painfully aware that we have finite natural resources and ever-growing environmental threats – most of which, like plastic, have been caused by us. I have seen first-hand the devastation that’s caused by plastic littering.”

“Great swathes of it wash up every day on the remote island beaches near Panama where we film the Channel 4 survival series, and I’ve stumbled across items of discarded plastic in some of the most remote and unlikely places, from the icy shores of Greenland to the Namibian Skeleton Coast (along the Atlantic Ocean in southern Africa). Even these areas of wild beauty are becoming scarred.”

“It is heartbreaking to witness close-up the harm that is being caused to sea birds and mammals,” he wrote. He complimented the British Scouting organization for helping build awareness and to put kids’ boots on the ground to form British litter brigades.

Allison Ogden-Newton, the brains behind the “Tidyman” character and the organization’s president, said: “Litter blights our streets, parks and beaches and costs us millions of pounds to clear up every year. Keep Britain Tidy has been here since 1954 to inspire people to eliminate litter now and for future generations.”

“But this is about more than simply getting people to pick up litter,” she stated. “We aim to change behaviour permanently by spotlighting the problem daily and offering creative solutions.”

Most historians agree that America’s “Litterbug” originated in a 1931 novel by author and highway beautification advocate Alice Rush McKeon of Maryland.

Perhaps in 2019, the little old litterbug image needs an overhaul, similar to Tidyman. Who is best positioned to lead our “national bug” to the “fountain of youth” before the plastic avalanche swallows it up?

Never underestimate the power of Scouting in the U.S.A.