I remember the public info adverts too and I'm pushing 60. I remember them from the 70s. I don't know if British people were just terrible litter bugs before that, or whether the campaign was needed to coincide with the wave of immigration that was happening in the post war years. I've lived overseas and travelled fairly extensively in developing countries where people have a very different attitude to things like littering, environemental health and hygiene and the environment in general, even today. Even things like using parks or wasteground as open air public toilets seems perfectly normal and acceptable in some countries. And as for the state of the beaches and the rivers, good grief.
Certainly growing up throughout the 70s and 80s and then being an adult with children in the 90s and 00s, I don't remember there being a huge problem with litter or anything like the general chaos and deterioration in the social fabric of this country. There have alwas been anti-social idiots and violent crime, but by and large most people were sensible and respectful. But in recent years it just feels like everything has gone to shit. I know people will immediately blame Tory austerity, but that can't be responsible for the way people choose to behave. I think it cannot possibly be a coincidence that this change has happened in line with the mass immigration of the last 10-15 years. It's been a ticking time bomb creeping up on us, but now it seems we've reached peak Shit Tip everywhere we look. Some places are turning into shanty towns. I NEVER dreamt I'd see that in this country.
I'm sure the litter thing has a lot to do with the proliferation of chicken shops and fast food joints and vapes, but I honestly think it's a cultural thing and we are just dealing with millions of newish people who just don't see the big deal in dumping crap everywhere. (Sometimes it's literally crap as well.)
The fact that it's rare to see council street sweepers these days doesn't help. And bin collections are becoming so infrequent and difficult to manage that frustrated people will just dump their black bag stuff anywhere if they can't wait two weeks and have no more space for it in their own bin. Especially if they don't have a garden or a car to go to the tip with it.
Equally, for every idiot like me who runs myself ragged trying to keep up with what I can and cannot recycle and jumping whenever the council says jump over changing rules, I look around in some areas and it seems every other fucker just chucks everything including glass and mattresses and dead cats in any old bin, or on the street and the council has no choice but deal with it if they can't work out what belongs to who. Meanwhile someone doing their best like me gets their black bin uncollected one week because the lid won't fully shut, or because I didn't wheel it quite close enough to the kerb and the bin men can't possibly be expected to go three steps to retrieve it. It makes me rage. I think this is why good people have just started to give up and not give a shit any more. They've had enough of paying more and more and getting less and less, while other people make no effort and get everything for nothing.
We were driving down a local A road recently and there were two men strimming and mowing the grass verge beside the road. It was absolutely FULL of litter, plastic bottles, fast food cartons and they were completely ignoring all that. Just strimming round it and through it. Not their job, obviously. They were only paid to strim grass, not actually clear up the area. 
But how ridiculous. It would have taken a bit longer and cost a bit more to clear the litter at the same time, but it would be far cheaper to make that all one job, than to make it a separate job entirely and then the highways agency say they can't afford to employ a second team to do it. It just exasperates me that absolutely nothing fucking well works like it should in this country any more.
Right, I've got myself all cross now. I'm going out to the pub for dinner to cheer myself up.