Roadside Litter

[S&CLER]

One welcome type of litter that seems to have increased lately is £5 and £10 notes. Since the new slippery notes were introduced, I have found £25 in fivers when out on my walks. In Alderley Edge I even found a £10 note in the gutter, but that's a posh place where you expect a better class of litter. I presume that they belonged to people who were too careless to put them in a wallet/purse, but simply stuffed them into a pocket.

 

[Bald Rick]

One welcome type of litter that seems to have increased lately is £5 and £10 notes. Since the new slippery notes were introduced, I have found £25 in fivers when out on my walks. In Alderley Edge I even found a £10 note in the gutter, but that's a posh place where you expect a better class of litter. I presume that they belonged to people who were too careless to put them in a wallet/purse, but simply stuffed them into a pocket.

Doesn’t happen round here, as no one uses cash anymore!

Perhaps Alderney Edge is a bit dodgy, lots of cash backhanders etc

 

[Baxenden Bank]

I would agree with the OP. It is everywhere and it does seem to be increasing.
1) bottles, food packaging and the like - based on the location, most likely deposited from moving vehicles the minute the contents are consumed,
2) carrier bags of rubbish, again presumably jettisoned from moving vehicles,
3) piles of building materials - could be DIYers or paid for tradesmen eg a full bathroom suite (broken) with tiles and pipes,
4) tyres,
5) furniture,
6) little deposits of fast food and drinks cartons, exactly where the doors open on the cars occupied by the gatherings of teenagers / young adults car on Tesco car park. ie eat and chat, open door, deposit, drive off.

Since the start of lockdown, I've been walking 5 or 6 miles a day on footpaths, bridleways and lanes here in Surrey, and it's just as bad. After a few days of being disgusted by the number of cans, bottles and wrappers thrown everywhere, I decided there was no point moaning about it if I wasn't prepared to do something. So every two or three days I'll take an old carrier bag with me and collect some of it. Particularly annoying are those who throw their bottles and cans over fences, where they're visible but out of reach. I now know where most of the litter bins are on my regular routes, so I drop off rubbish into them. The drinks cans I mostly take home and rinse out so they can go into the recycling, and that will easily be about 50 per fortnight. I'd agree that Red Bull is the worst offender, followed by low quality branded alcohol - Fosters and Stella feature a lot.

Well done sir, but be careful you don't get prosecuted for abusing the roadside bins, even if it is as a result of doing a good deed. Especially so if you leave a sack next to the bin (rather than filling it by putting it in). The curtain twitchers will be having you down as the fly-tipper! If your walks are long term (ie not just to fill COVID free time), perhaps seek permission from the local council / parish council. Locally I often see a man with a litter picker, bag and hi-vis doing just what you do. I spoke to him once, and told him what a good job he was doing - it is entirely voluntary on his part.

Along country lanes I think a lot is thrown out by car and van drivers, especially food wrappers and cans around a couple of unofficial laybys. But the bridleways and footpaths can be almost as bad, and that must be mostly people on foot. I can't understand the idea of going for a country walk, taking a drink with you, then throwing the can or bottle down in woodland or a field. By the sheer numbers, I suspect some of it must be groups of underage teenagers buying alcohol, going somewhere out of sight to drink it, then throwing away the evidence. The hot spots are often near village shops or filling stations.

I fail to understand the difficulty of carrying an empty bottle DOWN a mountain, once you have carried it UP full. If there was space in their rucksack at the start of their walk, I suspect that space remains later in the day!

I think the only real answer is a 10p or more deposit on single use cans and bottles, refundable if they're returned to a shop. As with carrier bag charging, there'll be complaints that it's a nanny state tax, etc. but we'd get used to it, and it might get the local kids collecting cans instead of throwing them away. I believe other countries have made it work.

Always used to be deposits on glass bottles. Cans used to be worth money to local groups / charities.

Tesco (in Swansea centre) has a machine which accepts and crushes plastic bottles in return for a voucher, spendable in store or the amount can be donated to a charity. If this didn't encourage individuals to recycle, it would certainly make it worth other people going out to do litter picks, making a modest cash sum in addition to the general worthiness of the activity. There was a limit on the number of bottles per person per day though.

 

[Bald Rick]

Aluminium scrap prices have fallen a lot recently (even pre Covid); each empty 330ml cans is worth about 0.25p. Which is why a deposit scheme might be necessary.

 

[PeterC]

Yep!hence why I said the restaurants wouldn’t like it! Also agree with the point about successfully prosecuting.

However I know of a case where a repeat offender dropped fast food bags, in roughly the same place on a frequent basis, and he was nabbed through the receipts he left in th bag. Dates / times / credit card details etc. Trouble is it’s a lot of effort for the police to chase what is seen as a relatively minor crime.

I thought that the local authority normally carried out the research.

 

[DelW]

Well done sir, but be careful you don't get prosecuted for abusing the roadside bins, even if it is as a result of doing a good deed. Especially so if you leave a sack next to the bin (rather than filling it by putting it in). The curtain twitchers will be having you down as the fly-tipper!

Fortunately most of the bins I pass are out in the country, with at most a couple of houses nearby, they're mostly fairly empty and I'm not usually adding much volume to them. If one is full or overflowing then I don't add to it - to be fair to the two local councils, they seem to be emptied fairly frequently.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Fortunately most of the bins I pass are out in the country, with at most a couple of houses nearby, they're mostly fairly empty and I'm not usually adding much volume to them. If one is full or overflowing then I don't add to it - to be fair to the two local councils, they seem to be emptied fairly frequently.

Litter bins in rural areas are a bit of a double edged sword.

If you don't have them, then folk often dump litter willy-nilly all over the place.

If you do have them, and they aren't emptied regularly, they often seem to quickly attract an adjacent great big overflow pile of litter bags.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Trouble is it’s a lot of effort for the police to chase what is seen as a relatively minor crime.

What has worked is allowing councils to issue penalties and retain the revenue from those penalties. Those £60 littering penalties add up to a decent enough revenue stream. And rightly so, I'm all for aggressively targeting litterers.

There's a large element of the broken windows effect with littering. Once someone does it, everyone does it. Also overflowing bins encourage it- why bother collecting litter when the council clearly can't be bothered?

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Article on litter fines in The Guardian today:

Littering unpunished by many councils

Littering unpunished by many councils in England and Wales

Campaigners call for penalties to rise to £1,000 after FOI data reveals lack of punitive action

Most councils issue less than one fine a week to litterers, according to data obtained via freedom of information rules, with one in six issuing no fines at all across a year.

Enforcement varied widely, with a handful of the councils in England and Wales issuing more than 100 a week.

Campaigners at Clean Up Britain said the level of littering was “shameful” and that enforcement of fines by councils should be made compulsory. They said the maximum on-the-spot fine of £150 was “derisory” and should be increased to £1,000.

Littering has increased as more people have visited parks during the coronavirus pandemic, with councils each having to clear up an average of 57 tonnes of additional waste from April to July, according to a survey by Keep Britain Tidy (KBT). “The levels of litter and waste being left has reached unprecedented levels,” one council officer told KBT.

Clean Up Britain received replies to their freedom of information (FOI) requests from 169 councils, representing more than half of councils in England and Wales. The majority – 56% – issued less than one litter fine a week and 16% issued no fines at all in the financial year 2018-19, the most recent year for which the FOI data is available.

The London borough of Hounslow issued the most fines for littering, with 156 per week, and Bristol council was second, with 151 a week. Four other London boroughs were in the top 10 – Merton, Camden, Bexley and Wandsworth. The Wirral, Wolverhampton and Doncaster councils also issued more than 80 litter fines a week

But Harrogate, Stevenage, Bridgend, Derbyshire Dales and South Somerset councils were among those issuing no litter fines at all, while Chorley and King’s Lynn and West Norfolk councils issued a single fine and Stratford-on-Avon council issued two.

Cornwall council, which runs a #LitterlessCornwall campaign also issued two fines in 2018-19. In total, the councils issued 116,000 fines for littering, compared with 2.3m fines for parking offences.

“It’s depressing, shameful and embarrassing what a dump this country has become,” said John Read, the founder of Clean Up Britain. The 2017 National Litter strategy from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) was a series of “incoherent, ineffective and uninspiring initiatives”, he said.

“Litter is a complex issue and there is no single silver bullet,” Read said. “However, it is very important to have an effective and punitive deterrent and that is totally lacking in Britain.”

The maximum on-the-spot fine for littering increased from £80 to £150 in 2018, but Read said that was a derisory figure and should be raised to £1,000. In February, the thinktank Bright Blue called for the fine to be raised to £500.

Merle van den Akker, the president of the behavioural insights team at Warwick Business School, backed Read’s call for a £1,000 fine: “This is how you get people to pay attention and take action. No one wants to be fined £1,000 for throwing away a £1 can of drink.”

A Defra spokeswoman said: “Littering blights communities, spoils our countryside and poses a risk to people’s health, which is why councils have legal powers to take enforcement action.”

Offenders who fail to pay the on-the-spot fines can be prosecuted and fined up to £2,500 and the spokeswoman said there were 22,699 such convictions in 2019, though this was a fall of 23% on 2018. The government has no plans to increase the on-the-spot fines, she said.

“Clearly it is a concern if some local authorities don’t ensure some level of enforcement on littering,” a spokeswoman for KBT said. “However, most have been subject to substantial budget cuts since 2010. Ultimately we need to urgently move away from our current single-use [packaging] culture.”

She said KBT ran training courses for council officers in effective and proportionate enforcement and would support magistrates making greater use of the £2,500 maximum court penalty.

Councillor Darren Rodwell, at the Local Government Association, said: “Councils are working hard to keep parks, streets and public spaces free from litter. Responsibility for litter lies with the person dropping it. [Fines] are a useful tool but on their own will not stop littering.”

Councillor Dan Humphreys, at the District Councils’ Network, said: “Our aim is to work with communities to promote positive behaviour. It can also be very difficult or in some cases impossible to track down perpetrators, which is why councils need the public’s cooperation to help keep our communities litter-free.”

A spokesman for Cornwall council said: “#LitterlessCornwall is designed to change people’s behaviours to prevent littering. I believe this has had a positive impact.”

He said the council had more trained officers than ever before who were authorised to tackle littering.

The FOI requests also obtained data on fines imposed for dog fouling, with councils issuing just six fines for dog fouling per year on average, apart from Woking, which imposed 60% of the all the fines, equivalent to 30 a week.

There were also few fines for graffiti, with 114 in total across all councils, dominated by Tower Hamlets in London with 49, and few for flyposting, with Cardiff issuing half the total of 1,063.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Other than ranting, I'm not sure what point Read and Keep Britain Tidy was trying to make in that article. £1000 FPNs for littering? Really?

As all parents of toddlers know, a deterrent is only a deterrent if it will be carried out and can be enforced. £50-£100 FPNs can be. More than that and, realistically, it can't; it'll be political suicide, people won't pay, or both.

I'm all for targeting litter droppers and I'd baulk at giving *anyone* the power to issue a £1000 FPN.

 

[Bikeman78]

Other than ranting, I'm not sure what point Read and Keep Britain Tidy was trying to make in that article. £1000 FPNs for littering? Really?

As all parents of toddlers know, a deterrent is only a deterrent if it will be carried out and can be enforced.

My three year old picks up litter and then looks around for a bin to put it in!

 

[Tetchytyke]

My three year old picks up litter and then looks around for a bin to put it in!

As does mine! Or she tries to eat it, one of the two (mine's just turned two).

"We'll fine you a grand for dropping a crisp packet!" is about the same as telling a toddler they're going to bed with no tea and you're going to sell their toys. It only works if you actually will do it, and any council that starts fining people a grand for dropping a tab end is committing political suicide. The Daily Mail would have a field day.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Problem then would be with enforcement officers attempting to justify their existence by issuing FPNs to folk inadvertently dropping a single sweetie wrapper in a town centre for which a £1000 fine on a first offence would be somewhat inappropriate when this level of penalty ought perhaps to be imposed on those who are deliberately fly tipping.

Perhaps the £1000 level of penalty should be reserved for repeat offenders and/or depend on the amount of littering.

 

[Ianno87]

My three year old picks up litter and then looks around for a bin to put it in!

As does mine! Or she tries to eat it, one of the two (mine's just turned two).

Mine as well!

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

Wrappers for food bought at a drive-in could be stamped with the registration mark of the vehicle

 

[Meerkat]

Wrappers for food bought at a drive-in could be stamped with the registration mark of the vehicle

To achieve what?
”I put it in a bin - the wind/foxes/tramps/yobbos must have got it out again.”

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Other than ranting, I'm not sure what point Read and Keep Britain Tidy was trying to make in that article. £1000 FPNs for littering? Really?

As all parents of toddlers know, a deterrent is only a deterrent if it will be carried out and can be enforced. £50-£100 FPNs can be. More than that and, realistically, it can't; it'll be political suicide, people won't pay, or both.

I'm all for targeting litter droppers and I'd baulk at giving *anyone* the power to issue a £1000 FPN.

It seems to be quite the rage.

£10 fines are not working, increase it to £100, then £500, then £1000, then £10,000. Alternatively, they could try properly enforcing the £10 fine by ensuring there is a realistic chance that you will get caught. Same as speeding, or parking, or amber light gambles. If there is next to no enforcement, as soon as people realise that, more of them will simply ignore the law.

You may see parallels with the lack of enforcement over the various COVID fines and the ramping up of the (theoretical) maximum fine.

Of course the level of fine really ought to be linked to wealth. A £10 fine to some people means no food on the table, whilst others wouldn't even know they had spent it.

 

[Bikeman78]

To achieve what?
”I put it in a bin - the wind/foxes/tramps/yobbos must have got it out again.”

I'm inclined to agree although that would be a tricky defence on a street with no bins or out in the countryside. A fox isn't likely to pull several items out of a bin and plonk them all in a pile one mile away.

 

[Meerkat]

£10 fines are not working, increase it to £100, then £500, then £1000, then £10,000. Alternatively, they could try properly enforcing the £10 fine by ensuring there is a realistic chance that you will get caught.

Catching litter being dropped is unlikely - if you have higher fines that can fund enforcement then you have more chance

A £10 fine to some people means no food on the table, whilst others wouldn't even know they had spent it.

That got put in and then abandoned - not sure why but may have been tabloid hysteria about ridiculous looking fine for dropping a crisp packet.

I'm inclined to agree although that would be a tricky defence on a street with no bins or out in the countryside. A fox isn't likely to pull several items out of a bin and plonk them all in a pile one mile away.

Are litter fines criminal and therefore need “beyond reasonable doubt?”

 

[Bikeman78]

Catching litter being dropped is unlikely - if you have higher fines that can fund enforcement then you have more chance

You would think so. It's not as if it's hard to predict the hotspots. Queen Street in Cardiff is a rubbish tip on Sunday mornings. There must be thousands of fast food wrappers on the ground. The council could make a killing if they had a few people handing out fines on Friday and Saturday nights.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

You would think so. It's not as if it's hard to predict the hotspots. Queen Street in Cardiff is a rubbish tip on Sunday mornings. There must be thousands of fast food wrappers on the ground. The council could make a killing if they had a few people handing out fines on Friday and Saturday nights.

I think that's definitely in the 'too difficult' category. But if every take-away had to use branded packaging materials, then the cost of cleaning up could calculated and passed back to the take-away premises - proportionate to their contribution to the problem. Much as I dislike McDonalds, they do have litter pickers operating beyond their immediate location. An alternative 'community resolution' would be to collect the branded material and put it through the letterbox of the premises in question!

But I get the general point that a lot of litter (rather than fly-tipping) is going to be in urban areas, and that regular patrols, rather than once-in-a-blue-moon publicity stunts, ought to be the norm. Such activity would have an education as well as an enforcement remit.

Even in rural areas, the worst littering spots are well known (simply by numbers of people visiting), and if you educate people at the popular spots, they will (ought to) take on board that message and not drop litter at the less popular locations either.

The 'out of the window as you drive along' will remain a problem though as that is near impossible to detect, but a wider education campaign would hopefully at least reduce it.

 

[Starmill]

Scrap metal prices can rise rapidly where demand for the materials jumps for some reason, among other shocks. Setting mandatory minimums for quantity of recycled materials in new goods would be helpful in that regard.

 

[Meerkat]

The 'out of the window as you drive along' will remain a problem though as that is near impossible to detect, but a wider education campaign would hopefully at least reduce it.

If you make the driver responsible then use dashcam footage - most people are pretty outraged when they see people just chuck stuff out. If it’s a single cab van then it will be pretty obvious who the culprit is.

 

[Westcountryman]

Wrappers for food bought at a drive-in could be stamped with the registration mark of the vehicle

I replied before. If you did this for a meal for a family of 4 you would need to stamp the registration on up to 22 different potential pieces of litter. This kind of suggestion really needs thinking through and a reality check.

 

[philthetube]

Need to make drivers responsible for any litter from their vehicle so dashcam footage could be used without having to prove which occupant did it.
Then make the punishment a real pain - cash isn’t fair as it’s either too little for the rich to care or so big it is ruinous for the poor, so it needs to be time. I am thinking a few weekends of litter picking would be really annoying, with a fine that just covers the admin of the scheme. wasting your weekend picking litter off the verge of a motorway should be pretty discouraging!

Totally agree, the next forr weekends spent collecting rubbish instead of generating it would solve many issues.

Other low level crimes should be dealt with similarly. Face masks?

 

[Meerkat]

Totally agree, the next forr weekends spent collecting rubbish instead of generating it would solve many issues.

Other low level crimes should be dealt with similarly. Face masks?

Face masks is too controversial. Litter is absolutely definitely a social ill, and litter picking a highly appropriate punishment and compensation to the community.