£858 million: The high price of litter
Oxfordshire councils are all getting behind Keep Britain Tidy’s latest campaign to clean up England’s streets and save the country more than £3/4 billion pounds a year.
Every year, it costs £858 million to pick up the litter that doesn’t make it into a bin: that’s £2.3 million every day. Across Oxfordshire, district councils spend over £3.5 million each year picking up after the people who can’t be bothered to bin their litter.
Keep Britain Tidy’s cheeky campaign is calling on everyone to ‘Get behind’ them to clean up England’s streets.
Phil Barton is Keep Britain Tidy’s chief executive. He says: “It is ridiculous that councils have to spend so much money on cleaning up their residents’ litter. If everyone would just put their litter in a bin, instead of mindlessly dropping it on the floor, we could save millions of pounds a year.”
Phil adds: “It is time for the silent majority to stand up and say ‘enough is enough’, get behind Keep Britain Tidy and Oxfordshire Waste Partnership (OWP) and show those who think it’s OK to throw their rubbish on the floor that there is a better way.”
The charity’s message is that spending £858 million on cleaning up litter is a national disgrace and the solution lies in our own hands.
OWP is backing Keep Britain Tidy’s rallying call. Cllr John Tanner OWP chair echos the comments of Keep Britain Tidy. He says: “It’s sad that so much council money is being spent clearing up discarded cigarette ends and fast-food wrappers when it could be used to fund vital services for the whole community. It’s not hard to put the litter in a bin or take it home and recycle it if you’re out and about. Oxfordshire’s a beautiful place. Let’s do our best to keep it that way.”
Keep Britain Tidy is the anti-litter charity for England. More information is available here. If you wish to download the two campaign posters please see the attachments below:
