People create litter

Litter ranges from a small sweet wrapper to a large bag of rubbish, a cigarette butt, an empty crisp packet, a plastic bottle or a used needle.

Litter is anything that is dropped, thrown or deposited, which defaces a public place.

Did you know?

• It costs council taxpayers in England and Wales £450 million a year to keep the streets clean. This does not include beaches, parks and other public spaces

• The amount of food dumped on our streets has risen by 7% causing the rat population to increase to 60 million in 2002

• If every smoker dropped one cigarette end a week in the UK, we would be knee deep in 624 million ends within a year

• 90% of British drivers find people throwing litter out of the car window annoying and irritating

• Some litter takes longer than others to degrade – plastic bottles can last indefinitely and plastic dropped in a field could still be there in the next millennium

We can eliminate the problem by not dropping litter in the first place – put your rubbish in a bin or take it home. Click on the links below to find out more.