Littering is probably the most widespread form of anti-social behaviour in the UK. Since the 1960s the amount of litter dropped annually has increased by around 500 per cent, and littering has become one of the most important local issues for the public. Town centres suffer from the blight of cigarette butts, chewing gum and free newspapers. Rural areas face the challenge of drive-by rubbish, and the litter on our beaches has increased 97 per cent since 1994.
Quite apart from the obvious impact on the beauty of our cities, towns and countryside, the direct costs of managing litter are considerable. Councils spend an estimated £500 million a year on cleaning. The indirect costs are considerable too: companies in heavily littered areas lose business, and such areas are linked to increasing crime rates and anti-social behaviour. In both town and country, wildlife risks ingesting litter and pollutants.
Policy Exchange’s new report Litterbugs has investigated who litters, why the litter and how we can prevent them from doing so.
Through polling and in-depth interviews with local authorities, we found that littering is symptomatic of social and individual attitudes towards both public space and waste. We found the most common reasons for littering are that an area is already littered; cleaning up is seen as the responsibility of someone else; there are no bins or ashtrays nearby; or when there is no incentive to dispose of litter properly. Efforts to tackle litter should target each of these causes in turn. In the UK, this has not been done in a sufficiently determined or co-ordinated way. Our anti-littering strategy is failing.
There are many things we can do to reduce littering. First, we need to re-establish ENCAMS as the national body responsible for co-ordinating anti-littering initiatives and programmes. Second, we need a sustained educational campaign to reinforce the right messages about litter. Third, we should create virtuous cycles of behaviour through the introduction of a national deposit scheme. And finally, we should apply fines with greater consistency across the country.
There are cheap, easy wins we can make against the tide of litter that does so much to scar Britain’s towns, cities and rural areas. Let’s learn from what we know works abroad – like deposit schemes – reward ‘good’ behaviour’, appropriately punish the ‘bad’ and change people’s behaviour for the better. Litterbugs shows us that these are both possible and effective.
A copy of Litterbugs can be downloaded from www.policyexchange.org.uk