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In July 2007, Bill Bryson was elected President of CPRE coming to the role with passion and commitment to clean up the English countryside. CPRE’s anti-litter and fly-tipping campaign aims to raise awareness, change behaviour and most importantly restore the English countryside to its former beauty for all to enjoy.

Why we need to stop dropping litter

It costs taxpayers in excess of half a billion pounds annually to clear the streets of England, and that doesn’t include parks or other public spaces.

Nearly half the population (48%) admit to dropping litter.

The amount of litter dropped yearly in the UK has increased by 500% since the 1960s.

It costs taxpayers in excess of half a billion pounds annually to clear the streets of England, and that doesn’t include parks or other public spaces.

MPs get more letters complaining about litter and dog fouling than anything else.

It is illegal to drop litter, and you can be fined up to £80 on the spot if you’re caught littering.

According to a MORI poll in 2002, clean streets come only second to crime and hospitals in a survey of local issues.

Nationally, seven out of ten items of litter are food related.

An estimated 122 tons of cigarette butts and cigarette-related litter is dropped every day across the UK.

1.3 million pieces of rubbish are dropped on Highways Agency roads alone every weekend (over a year this adds up to a whopping 67.2 million pieces of rubbish). A third of drivers admitting to throwing litter while on the road.

The rat population has boomed to 60 million due to the huge amounts of litter around. This means there are now almost as many rats as people in the UK.

Over 69,000 animals killed or injured by litter last year in Britain.

Litter, such as cigarette butts, plastic bags and other plastics, harms animal and marine life in a variety of ways such as water pollution, when these items are mistaken for food and when creatures get caught up in plastics and get strangled. It is estimated that every year over 1 million seabirds and 100,000 turtles and sea mammals die of litter related causes.

Over 373,000 pieces of litter were found on beaches in the UK in 2006 – equivalent to 1,989 items per kilometre – the Marine Conservation Society reports a 90% increase in beach litter since 2004.

The general level of litter has dropped from ‘satisfactory’ to ‘unsatisfactory’ in the last 12 months by Government’s own measures and standards.

The most recent Government study on local environmental cleanliness showed that there has been a significant increase in roadside litter to moving it into the ‘unsatisfactory’ category for the first time in the six years the survey has been conducted.

Litter makes an area look dirty and uncared for and attracts more litter. Littered areas are not pleasant to be in and are less likely to be used by people. In contrast, people are more reluctant to litter clean areas.

Littered items are a lost resource. When things that could otherwise be recycled, like PET, glass bottles and paper, are littered, they do not end up in the recycling stream.

Biodegradability

Any type of litter takes a long time to disappear naturally, so whatever the material the right thing to do is not to drop it in the first place. Degradability depends on climate and circumstances, but under unfavourable conditions estimated time spans are:

orange peel and banana skins – up to 2 years

cigarette butts – up to 2 years

plastic bags –10-20 years

tin cans – 50 years

aluminum cans – 80-100 years

plastic bottles – indefinitely

glass – indefinitely

Five ways you can help to tackle litter:

Report a litter or fly-tipping problem to your local council

Join a litter picking group where you live on LitterAction

Make your school litter free

Sign up to Bill Bryson’s Stop the Drop newsletter

Join us and make a difference

Find Out More

Below are a list of links to further information regarding this campaign:

See: Fly-tipping campaign page

See: CPRE National Office Stop the Drop campaign