A resident has slammed Tesco after plastic gloves were found across an estate near its petrol station.
Steve Plumridge has criticised the major supermarket after spotting blue plastic gloves littering the roads around the petrol station on Tebourba Way.
He said it was a "blight on the environment" and says he wants the chain to do something about the issue.
Steve, 59, has also criticised staff at Southampton City Council for not helping the issue by not picking up the litter when they see it.
Tesco provides the gloves for customers to use while refuelling their vehicles, with six bins provided to serve the 12 pumps.
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Steve said: "This is about looking after the wildlife and the plastic gloves take years and years to decompose.
"If Tesco was leaking oil into nature, it would be a massive story, so why isn’t this?”
The blue gloves can be seen around the site (Image: NQ, Jose Ramos)
Speaking to the Echo, Steve said: “When you pull the gloves to grab the pump, it’s not one glove that comes out, it’s like ten. And a lot of people don’t even bother to pick it up.
“They just think ‘Oh it’s not my job’ so they don’t do it. But the staff in the petrol station also don’t do anything about it. They probably think it’s the cleaner’s job.”
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He added: “The gloves then get blown by the wind and they end up settling in bushes and when the councilmen come to mow the grass they don’t even bother to get rid of the litter, they just mow over it.”
The blue gloves can be seen around the site (Image: NQ, Jose Ramos)
The dad of two, who has previously run for election as a councillor in 2008, 2010 and 2011 said he raised the issue with the petrol stations staff.
He said: “I bring it up to the staff and some of them just laugh about it and others say they would raise it. But it’s not a hard job. It’s your job.”
A Tesco spokesperson said: “We provide gloves for customers’ use when filling up at our Southampton Superstore petrol station, and we encourage customers using them to dispose of them responsibly in one of the bins provided.”
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