Facts and figures

A load of rubbish

• Over 30 million tonnes of litter is collected from our streets every year.

• Over 2 million pieces of rubbish are dropped in the UK every day.

• It costs £858,000,000 every year to clean the streets of England.

• The most frequently littered items by 13 to 16 year olds are food, drink and cigarette related items.

Teenage dirtbags

A 2002 survey found that:

Many teenagers admitted to dropping rubbish on an almost daily basis. The main reason was that they could not be bothered to use a bin;

Teenagers showed a total lack of guilt - unlike adults questioned, who felt high levels of guilt;

Teenagers are most likely to drop rubbish when in groups or gangs;

Bins are seen by many young people as dirty, smelly and unhygienic and so they often drop litter simply to avoid having to use a bin.

Here to stay?Item How long to fully degrade

Fruit waste Up to 2 years if left on ground and not eaten by wildlife

Magazine Up to 10 years

Chewing gum Synthetic rubber - could take years to rot away

Metal can Different metals rust away at different rates but could take hundreds of years to disappear

Plastic bags Slowly break up into tiny pieces but never completely degrade

Cigarettes The filter from a cigarette is made of acetate which will never fully break down

Glass Glass never degrades

The wildlife issue

• Animals may be choked, poisoned, injured or entangled by rubbish.

• Plastic kills 100,000 marine mammals and turtles every year.

• 100 million tonnes of plastic is floating in the oceans.

Litter and the law

• It is a criminal offence to drop litter in a public place.

• You can be fined up to £80 on the spot for dropping litter or sent to court if you refuse to pay and fined a maximum of £2,500.

• A single stack of rubbish such as a bin bag is considered fly-tipping.

• Dog faeces are classed as "refuse", not litter, and separate laws apply.