“God doesn’t do waste,” wrote the great Rowan Williams, and neither does Nature. 
But twenty-first century humans do, and it’s an urgent and growing problem for us and for our planet.
Waste isn’t inevitable; it is potentially valuable material that is no longer wanted by its owner, seen as a burden rather than an asset in a society that creates ‘rubbish’ from what ought to be treasured and used responsibly. 
But it is easier to mould scarce oil into an elaborate plastic tray than to sell fruit protected by its own peel, easier to throw away a complex machine than to repair the tiny component that has broken and easier to run the risk of a paltry fine for polluting air, water and soil than to take proper environmental precautions.
We are actors in a threefold tragedy: that so much waste is created in the first place, that we haven’t found better ways of reusing it and that even those systems that we do have are ignored by people and corporations who think that their convenience, pleasure and profit outweigh the rights of us all to live in a clean and healthy world.
 In the Green Party we’re concerned about all those aspects of waste. 
We’re campaigning for a truly circular economy, for initiatives like the container deposit scheme advocated by Enniskillen member Nigel Morris and for proper enforcement of the laws we already have, in cases such as the Mobuoy illegal landfill site. 
From the casual dropping of litter to major illegal dumping, we in Northern Ireland suffer from a toxic culture of arrogant impunity and a dismal failure of institutional action and political will. 
And, as always, it is those least to blame who pay the greatest price.
That’s why I’m delighted to welcome The Impartial Reporter’s campaign to raise awareness of these issues, building on its recent reports from across our county. 
For the sake of our own health, our tourist economy, our wildlife and livestock and our children’s future, we need this Keep Fermanagh Tidy initiative and the change that I hope it will bring about.
And we can all be a part of it. I read recently about the new Scandanavian trend of “plogging”, picking up litter while out running. 
Its popularity is growing across the world, from Paris to Thailand. 
Here in Fermanagh, Nigel has been doing just that for a long time, regularly collecting takeaway cartons, cigarette packets and crisp packets on his morning run. 
Not everyone can be a plogger, but we can all help in the fight against damaging waste, avoiding overpackaged and throwaway products, reusing and repairing wherever possible, disposing of our own rubbish responsibly and insisting that our representatives and agencies treat this issue with the seriousness it deserves. 
We are living in difficult times, with human cruelty and environmental ignorance championed across the Atlantic, the continuing damage of the Stormont stalemate and breathtakingly vast uncertainties over Brexit. 
Here is something tangible and important that we in Fermanagh can do together, showing in our actions the change we hope to see.