have to remember that a Bermuda vacation is more than a hotel and sightseeing experience. The real experience is being in Bermuda, the best of the Islands.

Visitors constantly tell us how beautiful Bermuda is but we must ask ourselves if it is as beautiful as it used to be. Sometimes it is difficult for locals to tell. The roads are such a nightmare that unless you are a vehicle passenger or taking your life in your hands by walking on the roads, you do not have any chance to look around you.

Truth be known, Bermuda is still very beautiful. However, it is not as clean or as tidy as it once was. Staying clean and tidy is not a one time event. It takes constant care and constant effort.

While there are clean-up projects like the recently completed Keep Bermuda Beautiful Railway Trail Clean-up it seems that the constant pressure to keep Bermuda beautiful has disappeared. We are tempted to think that residents are becoming immune to the sight of litter and no longer bother to react. Then too it often seems to us that the Keep Bermuda Beautiful organisation needs to be revitalised. Perhaps some of the young conservationists would like to give it some energy.

Major projects for keeping Bermuda clean often start with great publicity and support and then die. Ringing promises are made but not fulfilled. Bermuda was going to have a Clean Community System but that seems to have disappeared. We were told that would be more effective than a bottle return law. The Keep Bermuda Beautiful organisation accepted funding from the very people whose products turn into roadside litter, the bottlers, importers and liquor merchants, and they opened an office but ever since then KBB has been virtually silent except for brief projects.

We must not allow people who want to make money from products which turn into litter to endanger everyone's livelihood. We agree that they do not litter.

Goslings does not litter. Barritt's does not litter. Kentucky Fried does not litter. But the products they sell too easily turn into litter and therefore Bermuda needs some controls.

The truth is that we will never keep the bottles out of the bushes and off the roadsides without a bottle return law. Yes, it is a pain to operate but it is necessary. Until we have such a law we will never keep Bermuda as clean as we would like or as clean as our visitors expect.

There is an expectation that Bermuda is clean and safe. Finding out that those two things are not always true is a shock to visitors, sometimes more of a shock than the litter itself.

The truth is that litter indicates both a careless attitude and a lack of pride. It pleases us when people write letters to the Editor pointing out instances of littering and we hope those reports will increase.

In the meantime, we believe that most residents think more of Bermuda than to put up with litter and litterbugs.