The cost of clearing up Britain’s litter epidemic has risen by almost £100 million (10 percent) in just one year.[1] Figures highlighted today (Monday) by Keep Britain Tidy show the full shocking £858 million cost of our throwaway culture.

Samantha Harding, Manager of the CPRE Stop the Drop Campaign, says: “We’re told we’re living in the age of austerity but the cost of litter has exploded by almost £100 million and shows no signs of slowing down. We need a concerted and sustained public information campaign to educate people about the true costs of littering. We must make littering as unacceptable as vandalism.”

Led by its President, Bill Bryson, CPRE has spearheaded a renewed drive to get Britain’s litter under control with its ‘Stop the Drop’ campaign. The charity has been instrumental in securing a cross government, industry and NGO initiative to find solutions to the problem, with outcomes expected by late Autumn.

Samantha Harding concluded: “As with healthcare, the cost of prevention is much less than the cost of a cure. We need to stop litter before it happens and you do this with a mixture of information, incentive and provision. We need a campaign to make people take notice; financial incentives like bottle deposit schemes and better bin provision to allow people to do the right thing. It’s going to take government and industry to make this work but without action, the costs can only go up.”

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Notes to Editors
1. The figure of £858 million (actual figure £858,514,000) is taken from the Local Government Financial Statistics England No.20, DCLG (2010) and is the total street cleansing cost for England for the period from April 2008 to March 2009.

• Stop the Drop is a flagship CPRE campaign and was launched in April 2008. The campaign calls for a national, long term education campaign, a bottle deposit scheme and a change to the law on roadside litter. To date the campaign has inspired the formation of 286 litter picking groups across England, who have collectively cleared 35,068 bags of litter to date. Further information about the campaign can be found at its websites: www.cpre.org.uk and www.litteraction.org.uk
• CPRE, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, is a charity which promotes the beauty, tranquillity and diversity of rural England. We advocate positive solutions for the long-term future of the countryside. Founded in 1926, we have 60,000 supporters and a branch in every county. President: Bill Bryson. Patron: Her Majesty The Queen. www.cpre.org.uk