Billy and I were out on Saturday having a walk along Budleigh beach doing our usual beachcombing for the detritus thrown up in the recent storms.

Billy's best outing included finding 12 tennis and other balls: he has a bit of a fettish!

However, it's not just tennis balls Billy is looking for, but all man made pollutants.

He found five drinks bottles including one that looked like it had been someone's morning orange juice, numerous bits of hard and soft plastic, a large piece of fluorescent tube, a car tyre and plenty of fishing line.

On returning home, I was looking at Facebook and saw a local post in Positive Exmouth group with Jack Athawes, aged eight, and five-year-old Max Athawes.

They had been cleaning up St Andrew’s Road, all around the first part of the esplanade and around Morton Crescent and beyond, finding everything including a large amount of medication including inhalers? My thanks goes out to them!

We are fortunate enough to live in a stunning part of the world, as all of it should be, and we owe it to ourselves to keep it as pristine as possible.

I remember a couple of years ago seeing someone who had just picked up their dog's poo on Exmouth beach in a supermarket bag before tucking it into some rocks below the high tide mark and everywhere we go to walk Billy you find dog poo bags hung up in trees, or thrown under bushes.

What is going on in the minds of these diligent people who pick up their dog's mess only to throw it and a plastic bag into the natural environment.

If you can't manage to dispose of it properly don't pick it up in the first place!

Rubbish is a global problem and the majority of educated people do their bit, but perhaps next time you're out for a walk, take a bag to pick up a bit of someone else's rubbish to make it better for all of us.