Litter

If waste is left in the wrongplace, like on the pavementor in someone’s garden, wecall it litter. Commonexamples of litter includesweet wrappers, crisppackets, bottles, cans andchewing gum.

The environmentOnce a piece of litter has been dropped, it can take a long time for it to break down.

However there is no guarantee a piece of litter will stay inthe same place. When it rains litter can be washed intodrains and then rivers. From there it can end up in theocean and then on our beaches.

On wildlifeIt is estimated that around 70,000 animals are injured orkilled by litter every year in the UK. Animals like cats anddogs can cut their delicate paws on broken glass and sharpobjects left on the pavement. Hedgehogs can become stuckin cans as their spines get trapped stopping them from beingable to back out. In the ocean sea turtles can mistake plasticbags for their normal food source, jellyfish.

As well as hurting animals, litter can also attract animals wedo not want like rats, pigeons and foxes who see it as apotential food source. Encouraging these animals intoresidential areas can be a bad thing as some carry diseases.

Littering hasmany harmfuleffects on theworld we live in.

Litter

On our pocketsYou can be fined up to £80 on the spot for droppinglitter. This can increase to £2500 if the case goes tocourt. That is a lot of money to pay for dropping a crisppacket!

It is estimated that in England councils spend £885million every year clearing litter from our streets. If theamount of litter increases these costs will increase andtaxpayers will have to pay more to cover them.

Littering facts

Fly tippingFly tipping is littering on alarger scale. It is theillegal dumping of wasteusually on roadsides, laybys and even private land.Items dumped can rangefrom smaller items likefridges or furniture all theway up to whole lorryloads of waste.

Did you know you canborrow litter pick

equipment from yourlocal council if you

want to do a litter pickin your school?

Litter

Litter

Around 2.25 million pieces of

rubbish are droppedevery day in the UK.

We drop over 30million tonnes oflitter in the UKevery year.

48% of peopleadmit to

dropping litter.

At least one item of litter isfound on every 50 cm of beach.

94% of people thinkdropping litter is a

fairly or veryirritating behaviour.