Virtual Lancaster

Lancaster City Council has joined nearly 100 other councils that are backing a new campaign to tackle motorists who use our streets as rubbish bins.

Every year, the council spends hundreds of thousands of pounds cleaning litter from the district’s streets – and an increasing amount comes from car drivers and their passengers.

Now, the council has announced it is working closely with Keep Britain Tidy, the national charity dedicated to keeping Britain’s streets clean, to launch a new campaign to encourage people to report litter dropped from vehicles.

More than 700,000 bags of litter are collected each year from England’s roads — at huge cost to the public and risk to maintenance staff. Much of it is hurled from cars, vans and lorries and ends up stuck in hedges or piled high at traffic lights.

Throwing litter from a car not only turns roadsides into a dumping ground for fast food litter, cigarette stubs, drinks cartons and apple cores but can also be very dangerous for other road users, particularly cyclists and motorcyclists who can be distracted or hit by the items thrown from cars.

Shockingly, nearly a quarter of people (23%) admit to dropping litter from their vehicle, according to latest Keep Britain Tidy research.

Despite the increasing problem, prosecuting offenders has, so far, not always been easy. While any passenger or driver can be fined for dropping litter, often it’s difficult to identify the litter-throwing occupant, especially if the vehicle is going at speed.

To make it easier to prosecute offenders, Keep Britain Tidy argues it’s time that the owner of the vehicle should be fined and receive points on their driving licence – unless they provide details of the culprit.

In London, people caught throwing litter from motor vehicles are facing fines of £100 thanks to new penalties agreed by London Councils’ Transport and Environment Committee.

Keep Britain Tidy’s proposals have, of course, met with the usual howls of protest from car users, complaining they are being victimized (see reaction to The Times coverage of the story).

Lancaster City Council has not announced specific fines for car litter, but Coun Jon Barry, Cabinet member with responsibility for City Council (Direct) Services, says he very much supports the campaign.

“An increasing amount of litter is being thrown out of car windows and it is something we need to stop,” he says.

“Apart from anything else, it is costing the council and local tax payers to clean it up.”

People can report incidents of littering from vehicles on the Keep Britain Tidy website at www.keepbritaintidy.org. They will be recorded on a database and used to analyse trends in littering from vehicles.

As well as our own, nearly 100 other councils in England will be working with Keep Britain Tidy to gather evidence on when and where car litter offences occur and will also be campaigning to raise awareness of the problem.

Last year, the national Guardian reported that according to the government, councils spend nearly £500m a year on litter collection and have hugely increased the number of on-the-spot fines and prosecutions. In 2007 there were 700 court cases, and 17,000 £80 on-the-spot penalties, a 30% increase on 2006.

• Keep Britain Tidy Car Litter Campaign

• Car Bin Makers: www.tidi.ie and EziNClean: www.ezinklean.com/ezi/