:00:10. > :00:16.Britain's litter is everywhere. A tide of rubbish. There are bins and
:00:17. > :00:26.I don't see why people use them. They dump it on the floor. Have we
:00:27. > :00:33.got used to it? People dump stuff in defiance of the law but some
:00:34. > :00:38.councils are getting tough. It is a ?75 fixed penalty notice. Litter
:00:39. > :00:46.costs money weekly -- to clean up, which we could use more wisely. It
:00:47. > :00:58.costs ?1 billion a year to clean up litter which could mean we could
:00:59. > :01:06.have 30,000 nurses. I see people dropping litter but I never say
:01:07. > :01:12.anything. It is a beautiful country and I don't understand why people
:01:13. > :01:17.want to make it look like BLEEP. I remember when the campaign against
:01:18. > :01:21.litter began with films like this. Keep Britain Tidy was the rallying
:01:22. > :01:39.call of the 60s. Today the message is even more urgent. Since the 60s
:01:40. > :01:45.the population of the UK has risen by a little over 20% but the amount
:01:46. > :01:49.of litter dropped has risen by 500%. 30 million tonnes of litter is
:01:50. > :01:55.collected from our streets every year. The worst ones are the
:01:56. > :02:00.cigarette butts. As soon as they finished smoking, they put it on the
:02:01. > :02:05.floor. I don't like to see dirty rubbish bags just dumped in the
:02:06. > :02:13.middle of the street. What causes the litter? Who is doing it? Just
:02:14. > :02:18.the general public. Do you find London tidy and clean? It is dirtier
:02:19. > :02:24.than the other cities. We just came from Switzerland and Paris and they
:02:25. > :02:35.are both clean-up. Switzerland, OK, but is Paris cleaner than London?
:02:36. > :02:39.Cleaning England's streets costs nearly ?1 billion a year. That is a
:02:40. > :02:43.staggering sum when you realise a great deal of it is totally
:02:44. > :02:48.affordable if only we took home our litter or put it in the bin. This is
:02:49. > :02:53.Camden in North London and it is here that we are staging an
:02:54. > :02:58.experiment. The council, prompted by Keep Britain Tidy, has agreed to
:02:59. > :03:01.keep one side of the street uncleaned for 24 hours while
:03:02. > :03:10.cleaning the opposite side as usual. We will be back later to
:03:11. > :03:13.check out results. Litter broods litter and I am very sure that as
:03:14. > :03:16.the litter builds up, more people will feel it is acceptable to drop
:03:17. > :03:19.it. I am confident that tomorrow morning at the end of the experiment
:03:20. > :03:25.we will find one side of this street is absolutely crammed with litter. I
:03:26. > :03:30.am old enough to remember a time when you would never dream of eating
:03:31. > :03:35.or drinking in the street. Fast food and take away is simply did not
:03:36. > :03:41.exist. We have far more smoking and chewing gum litter is a significant
:03:42. > :03:45.issue. We have a throwaway society more generally, so we have single
:03:46. > :03:52.use bags and so on. The packaging that is around the things we buy has
:03:53. > :03:59.grown substantially. Ask anyone what they make of it and they admit that
:04:00. > :04:04.they hate litter, so why don't we do something about it? We blame the
:04:05. > :04:12.councils but some are making a real effort and making a real success.
:04:13. > :04:17.Greetings from Ormskirk. Since the 90s, we have actually had some of
:04:18. > :04:22.the toughest litter laws in Europe. Some councils issue hundreds of
:04:23. > :04:25.fines while others scarcely bother. In West Lancashire the borough
:04:26. > :04:30.council is making positive efforts to make litter unacceptable. It is
:04:31. > :04:35.market day and I am out with the litter police, the environment
:04:36. > :04:41.office is about to go into action. There will be a couple of us going
:04:42. > :04:45.into the market. If we see anybody dropping litter, obviously we are
:04:46. > :04:51.there to enforce and issue a fixed penalty but we do try and educate
:04:52. > :04:55.people first. We do a lot of education. Sharron and her team
:04:56. > :05:05.don't get heavy. They have a softly softly approach. They have
:05:06. > :05:07.discovered a heap of broken chairs. Keep Britain Tidy believes that
:05:08. > :05:10.litter attracts crime. If nobody is taking pride in the neighbourhood,
:05:11. > :05:14.then why should anybody bother? Anti-social behaviour flourishes.
:05:15. > :05:18.Today it is a word of warning rather than penalties. We have spoken to
:05:19. > :05:22.the manager and they are more than happy to clear it up to date and the
:05:23. > :05:28.chairs will be removed by the end of the week. We have asked not to put
:05:29. > :05:32.anything else out in future. Anything broken. Because what will
:05:33. > :05:37.happen is that somebody will come, it will end up in part Ormskirk work
:05:38. > :05:41.that we don't want. Ormskirk people know they can report litter and they
:05:42. > :05:45.are not afraid of doing so. Last night the team got the message that
:05:46. > :05:50.there was some unsightly rubbish lying around. We can spot it
:05:51. > :05:54.already. It is down there. It is hard to miss these rubbish bags
:05:55. > :06:17.outside what turns out to be a student house. One of the students,
:06:18. > :06:20.a newcomer to the area, gets a reprimand from Sharron. Did you know
:06:21. > :06:23.that if you leave extra weight you can be fined? No. Somebody will have
:06:24. > :06:26.to take this to the tip themselves. Your collection will not be for
:06:27. > :06:28.another week and if you have an extra seven bags now, there will be
:06:29. > :06:31.another seven in another week. Were you surprised by what he told you? A
:06:32. > :06:34.little bit but I did not think we could put that many out. I did not
:06:35. > :06:40.know if we were allowed. You have a huge amount. We missed the bin for
:06:41. > :06:45.three weeks. Large bin bags left on the street are unsightly, fact. We
:06:46. > :06:50.have loads of rubbish to get rid of, fact. The smoking ban means the
:06:51. > :06:58.unintended consequences of cigarette litter outside buildings. So where
:06:59. > :07:04.is it all going to go? After all, it does have to go somewhere. It is
:07:05. > :07:08.easy enough to blame the councils, but that does not get you very far.
:07:09. > :07:13.Increased council efforts would simply mean higher council tax,
:07:14. > :07:18.which is something we could all avoid by cleaning up our own
:07:19. > :07:22.individual litter. It costs about ?1 billion a year to pick up litter and
:07:23. > :07:29.that equivalent cost might buy us more than 30,000 nurses, more than
:07:30. > :07:35.30,000 care assistants, or over 4000 libraries. Isn't that much more
:07:36. > :07:39.socially useful expenditure? I welcome all the delegates that are
:07:40. > :07:43.here. Last week by chaired a conference for Keep Britain Tidy,
:07:44. > :07:48.who are launching a whole new initiative. Their problem is paying
:07:49. > :07:52.for it. I think going out and talking to the community is the
:07:53. > :07:57.precise thing that is under threat. Who will pay for it? Keep Britain
:07:58. > :08:05.Tidy use to receive ?5 billion a year from DEFRA, the department for
:08:06. > :08:08.the environment, to help fund educational programmes and national
:08:09. > :08:10.campaigns. That has been cut to half a million, intended to cover the
:08:11. > :08:16.publication of its annual environmental survey. The old
:08:17. > :08:20.advertising campaigns that I remember from the 70s have been
:08:21. > :08:25.ditched. Any new approach will have to cost less. You have lost
:08:26. > :08:32.Government support. That is really damaging. I think the present
:08:33. > :08:33.Government of England has not done anything around litter. It has no
:08:34. > :08:46.litter strategy. Rubbish is not just a problem for
:08:47. > :08:56.cities. It is spoiling the countryside, too. It is fly-tipping.
:08:57. > :09:01.People are just coming out here and leaving heaps of junk on other
:09:02. > :09:05.people's land. This potato farm is suffering from blight. Not potatoes,
:09:06. > :09:12.but the repeated dumping of other people's rubbish. This arrived
:09:13. > :09:17.overnight? It gets tipped overnight and this is what we find when we go
:09:18. > :09:25.round. We are lucky that we can get into the field. This is domestic
:09:26. > :09:32.waste, yes. Where is it coming from? A bathtub, children's toys, we clear
:09:33. > :09:37.it away and then it returns. You can go to another site. You can have two
:09:38. > :09:42.or three places where it is dumped. If you leave one like this, you will
:09:43. > :09:47.find another person coming along and adding to it. It is not just
:09:48. > :09:52.unsightly, it can be toxic or dangerous, full of broken glass,
:09:53. > :10:00.sharp needles. We went and moved it not knowing what it was once, and we
:10:01. > :10:06.found out that it was a cheap way of people getting rid of asbestos. It
:10:07. > :10:10.is criminal, really. Because it has been dumped on private not public
:10:11. > :10:15.land, it is not the job of the council to remove it. Farmers like
:10:16. > :10:19.Colin Bradley have to pay out of their own pocket. By the time I have
:10:20. > :10:24.found the rubbish, done and evaluation, got it picked up with a
:10:25. > :10:30.tractor and trailer, sent men out there, paid for the tipping, I think
:10:31. > :10:38.each occasion will be close to ?500. Each time? Yes. Overall local
:10:39. > :10:42.authorities are reporting a decline in fly-tipping but it is on the rise
:10:43. > :10:46.in areas like footpaths and bridleways. Three years ago the
:10:47. > :10:51.National Farmers' Union got involved. They needed hard
:10:52. > :10:56.evidence. They asked all their members to keep a record of
:10:57. > :11:00.fly-tipping on their private land. By 2012, they had come to an
:11:01. > :11:10.important discovery. They discovered that the rate of fly-tipping had
:11:11. > :11:16.gone up by 45%. It is very rare that it will take once. It tends to take
:11:17. > :11:21.place 15 or 20 times. When it gets to that stage, farmers tend not to
:11:22. > :11:31.report it. There is a big silent majority out there. Fly-tipping is
:11:32. > :11:36.furtive. They are canny enough to choose sides where they are not
:11:37. > :11:42.likely to be caught. It is no surprise that half of the local
:11:43. > :11:46.districts have prosecuted fly tippers. We may be unwittingly
:11:47. > :11:51.encouraging fly-tipping. We all have bulky stuff to get worried and it is
:11:52. > :11:57.often easy to pay someone, anyone, to take it off our hands. -- bulky
:11:58. > :12:02.stuff to get rid of. But it might not go to the tip. If we find
:12:03. > :12:05.paperwork with addresses on and get in contact with those people to
:12:06. > :12:09.trace it to see if they have committed the crime, you will often
:12:10. > :12:17.find that they are not aware of what has happened and they have used a
:12:18. > :12:21.third party. It is easy enough to blame councils. Some make a big
:12:22. > :12:26.effort, some don't do enough. But how can we measure the difference
:12:27. > :12:30.they are already making? Back in North London, our experiment of
:12:31. > :12:35.cleaning one side of the street and neglecting the other is well under
:12:36. > :12:38.way and the neglected side is beginning to look disgusting. We are
:12:39. > :12:42.ten hours into the litter experiment and this is the situation so far.
:12:43. > :12:47.You can understand people putting litter on top of the bin because it
:12:48. > :12:51.is full but there is an empty one just across the road. I am shocked
:12:52. > :12:59.that people will not just walk across to another litter bin. If
:13:00. > :13:05.each of us took the trouble, the place could look really good. But
:13:06. > :13:09.what about those whose products create the rubbish in the first
:13:10. > :13:14.place? The big brand food companies. The most illiterate
:13:15. > :13:26.brands in the UK McDonald's, and Wrigley's. -- most littering brands.
:13:27. > :13:29.I would like to see them taking responsibility and making it part of
:13:30. > :13:34.their marketing mix. Not just pre-consumption, you buying the
:13:35. > :13:39.brand, but some effort going into post-consumption. Clean Up Britain
:13:40. > :13:44.is in on-going discussions with three multinationals. Their patron
:13:45. > :13:53.is Jeremy Paxman. The terror of the politicos has some warnings for the
:13:54. > :13:57.big brands. There's a reputation issue. Every time somebody walks
:13:58. > :14:01.down the street and sees a McDonald's wrapper, a Coca-Cola
:14:02. > :14:05.bottle, a chewing gum company wrapper, they think of that
:14:06. > :14:10.company. That is not the way you want to be thought of. Big brands do
:14:11. > :14:15.spend money on helping us tackle the litter problem. It costs them
:14:16. > :14:18.something to put a label on their packaging, in space they might want
:14:19. > :14:22.to use for marketing. But they do use it to put the little man logo
:14:23. > :14:27.on, and hope that people will take personal responsible T4 disposing of
:14:28. > :14:31.the packaging responsibly. -- responsibility.
:14:32. > :14:39.I also had the chance to take my litter inquiry into a more
:14:40. > :14:42.light-hearted TV show. Here I am, in the heart of entertainment
:14:43. > :14:46.television, where they make a very great fuss of you. You don't get any
:14:47. > :14:55.of this on Panorama! You can see which I prefer. I have seized the
:14:56. > :15:01.opportunity to be doing Room 101. I have nominated chewing gum. Chewing
:15:02. > :15:06.gum is a particular blight to our cities. It's one I really hate. It
:15:07. > :15:14.is estimated costs councils more than ?50 million each year. So, what
:15:15. > :15:23.does the host of Room 101 make of litter? Do you worry about litter?
:15:24. > :15:28.Yes. The trouble with litter as it is a constant affront to my courage
:15:29. > :15:33.and my power of vision. I see people dropping litter, but I almost never
:15:34. > :15:38.say anything. Have you ever said anything? A couple of times and it
:15:39. > :15:42.has never gone well. I feel if I was a stronger, more muscular man, I
:15:43. > :15:49.would be beating people on a regular basis.
:15:50. > :15:59.The audience is in. The event is on. The call has come, this is show
:16:00. > :16:03.business! I get the chance to put my case to the Room 101 audience.
:16:04. > :16:21.Chewing gum. How vile is it? Frank may be wary of telling people off,
:16:22. > :16:24.here is a man that isn't. Do you ever come from people if you see
:16:25. > :16:28.them throwing litter away? I have found when you confront people and
:16:29. > :16:33.say, excuse me, you have just dropped this, nine times out of ten,
:16:34. > :16:37.you might be unlucky on the 10th, but nine times out of ten they will
:16:38. > :16:44.say, sorry, and they will take it away. What gets up your nose about
:16:45. > :16:48.letter? What really bothers me is that this is not really about living
:16:49. > :16:53.in a filthy environment. It is about the way we think about ourselves and
:16:54. > :16:58.about other members of society. If I throw away a bit of rubbish, I don't
:16:59. > :16:59.want it around me any more. I fail to recognise it is then around
:17:00. > :17:14.somebody else. There is one form of litter that
:17:15. > :17:19.offends more than any other. In Manchester, a group of campaigners
:17:20. > :17:26.has found their own original way of tackling a dirty problem, dog mess.
:17:27. > :17:31.Careful, there is loads along here. This is typical of this alley. I
:17:32. > :17:35.have lived here for several years and I had always been a bit annoyed
:17:36. > :17:46.by the level of dog mess. Then I had a daughter. I was pushing her around
:17:47. > :17:54.in her buggy and got really fed up of having to dodge dog mess. There
:17:55. > :17:57.is some coming up just here. Meet the poo-busters of Stretford. The
:17:58. > :18:02.idea is to do something positive while taking a walk in the park,
:18:03. > :18:07.armed with biodegradable spray. They set out to shame irresponsible dog
:18:08. > :18:11.owners. I don't want to challenge a dog walker in the park. I don't know
:18:12. > :18:16.that person, I don't know how that aunt is going to react. It's peer
:18:17. > :18:18.pressure. It is the community telling other members of the
:18:19. > :18:24.community that it is not a perfect thing to do.
:18:25. > :18:32.We have a huge pile, here. A bit more, there. It is just to show
:18:33. > :18:41.people that we can see they are letting their dogs foul. It's a very
:18:42. > :18:46.bright! You can't miss it. This country has 8 million dogs, who
:18:47. > :18:50.deposit 1000 tonnes of mess every day. It costs us an estimated ?22
:18:51. > :18:53.million each year to clean up. People cannot wait for others to
:18:54. > :18:59.solve the problem, they are getting on with it for themselves. There is
:19:00. > :19:07.over here, this my big chance! It feels good, when you've done that.
:19:08. > :19:13.Bins and bags are there. It is just they are not always used.
:19:14. > :19:17.Undoubtedly, on the streets around where I live, I have seen a
:19:18. > :19:20.difference. I think there are a few individual dog owners that have
:19:21. > :19:24.changed their behaviour in response. I have a sense of people taking
:19:25. > :19:34.action themselves, simply to improve their neighbourhood.
:19:35. > :19:41.The same is true of pictures. The amount of rubbish on beaches has
:19:42. > :19:49.reached its highest level in five years. Good morning, thanks for
:19:50. > :19:55.coming to Sand Bay. I am out in Weston-super-Mare with volunteers
:19:56. > :20:03.that have answered a call from the marine conservation Society, for the
:20:04. > :20:09.national beach watch weekend. Every piece of litter is filed and
:20:10. > :20:13.removed, then fed into a survey and compared to previous years. A third
:20:14. > :20:18.of the items that we pick up our people's rubbish, the general public
:20:19. > :20:22.dropping litter on the beaches, trying to stuff it into overfilled
:20:23. > :20:27.bins and it gets onto the beach or the sea. At first glance, it doesn't
:20:28. > :20:32.look too bad. But amongst the seaweed looks nasty surprises. We
:20:33. > :20:39.have done a ten metre stretch, the plastic pieces are greater than 2.5
:20:40. > :20:48.centimetres, that has tidied up... Tallied up to 70 pieces already.
:20:49. > :20:52.Last year, volunteers covered around 90 kilometres of coastline. It makes
:20:53. > :20:57.for a jolly day out. The last beach survey showed a 16% increase in
:20:58. > :21:01.rubbish on the previous year. It spoils things for tourists, but it
:21:02. > :21:06.can be much more significant for wildlife. The RSPCA received 7000
:21:07. > :21:13.calls per year about litter related incidents. Small pieces, tiny
:21:14. > :21:19.pieces, why do they matter? Plastic dust, micro plastics, which are
:21:20. > :21:24.being ingested by things like mussels and other fish. We are
:21:25. > :21:31.concerned it could end up in the human food chain as well. Ever since
:21:32. > :21:33.the campaign began 20 years ago, the amount of rubbish on beaches has
:21:34. > :21:40.gone up by 92%. The amount of plastic on beaches has
:21:41. > :21:58.increased by 140%. Every tide brings in new litter. And
:21:59. > :22:02.the councils are not at fault, it is not then that has dropped the
:22:03. > :22:03.litter. It needs to be a united effort of everybody getting together
:22:04. > :22:18.to turn the tide on litter. These days, almost everything we buy
:22:19. > :22:22.to eat from shops and supermarkets comes wrapped, bagged, boxed and
:22:23. > :22:27.covered in clingfilm or other packaging. In the UK, we get rid of
:22:28. > :22:31.11 million tonnes of packaging every year. Although most of it is
:22:32. > :22:37.recycled, just over a third of it ends up in landfill. In an ideal
:22:38. > :22:42.world, I would like to see less packaging. I would like to see more
:22:43. > :22:49.reusable packaging, so we move away from this constant single use item
:22:50. > :22:54.being produced. When we go shopping, we are seeing packaging at the end,
:22:55. > :22:58.almost, of its useful life. It has actually enabled the product to be
:22:59. > :23:04.stacked in a warehouse, ten metres high, fitted into the back of a
:23:05. > :23:06.lorry. And ago it streams of temperature. So when we take it off
:23:07. > :23:10.the shelf, there is more packaging, often, than we really need. But it
:23:11. > :23:25.would not have got there without that packaging.
:23:26. > :23:34.I've seen what gentle persuasion does in Ormskirk and individual
:23:35. > :23:38.initiative in Stretford. Now I am in Essex, to see what happens when
:23:39. > :23:43.council and citizens work together. The green heart of Essex campaign
:23:44. > :23:54.was born three years ago. Roger is one of its biggest employees. People
:23:55. > :23:57.come up to me and say, in this lane, there is a load of glass on the
:23:58. > :24:02.corner. Within quarter of an hour, it is swept up. They see me doing
:24:03. > :24:07.this, they come out and say, it is down that road there. They can feel
:24:08. > :24:11.happy to come up. They know it is never a problem because I just come
:24:12. > :24:15.and do it. This is the zero tolerance approach. Councillor Wendy
:24:16. > :24:19.Schmitt, who leads and inspires her team, will go to any lengths to
:24:20. > :24:24.promote the campaign, even launching it by sitting in a glass case of
:24:25. > :24:28.rubbish. It made the headlines. We did an awful lot of surveys with the
:24:29. > :24:35.public, asking what was really important to them, that was
:24:36. > :24:38.sacrosanct, that we would not touch. In virtually every survey that came
:24:39. > :24:40.back, in the top three was the cleanliness of the streets and the
:24:41. > :24:51.state of our green, open spaces. In Braintree, the in your face
:24:52. > :24:59.approach is supported by local magistrates.
:25:00. > :25:05.We are very fortunate that the courts back us here. They understand
:25:06. > :25:12.what we are trying to do. The highest fine, and we do like to let
:25:13. > :25:15.people know this, was ?717.50 for one cigarette butt. That is what
:25:16. > :25:23.happens if you do not pay the fine. There are resolute and persistent
:25:24. > :25:30.campaign has borne fruit. Fast-food litter has dropped by 65%. Cigarette
:25:31. > :25:32.related litter has dropped by 48%. The use of fixed penalty notices has
:25:33. > :25:49.increased by more than 250%. It is Saturday night in Braintree,
:25:50. > :25:50.and that you are out in force at the McDonald's drive-through. -- the
:25:51. > :26:01.young. Manager Cherry is an enthusiastic
:26:02. > :26:07.supporter of that understands and employs four full-time litter
:26:08. > :26:16.pickers. When customers place an order, staff writer number plates on
:26:17. > :26:19.the receipt. If that rubbish is found, or the remains of the rubbish
:26:20. > :26:25.is found, where the registration number is on it, we are able to
:26:26. > :26:32.identify who dropped the litter through that registration.
:26:33. > :26:39.And it doesn't stop there. Tonight is one Braintree Council's regular
:26:40. > :26:43.enforcement nights. The team, along with the police, are lying in wait
:26:44. > :26:49.for offenders. It's not long before one of the litter spotters spot is a
:26:50. > :26:54.crime. It is a fixed penalty notice. I am going to caution you. This man
:26:55. > :27:02.has been caught dropping a cigarette butt. ?75 fixed penalty notice.
:27:03. > :27:08.You have 14 days to pay that. If it is not paid within 14 days, you may
:27:09. > :27:15.be summoned to court. It carries a maximum fine of ?2500. He was not
:27:16. > :27:18.happy, they never are when they get a fine. But if they commit the
:27:19. > :27:20.offence, that is what they get. For this man, it was a very expensive
:27:21. > :27:32.night out. Back in Camden, it is the morning
:27:33. > :27:39.after the night before. On the side of the street that has been cleaned
:27:40. > :27:43.as normal, it is pretty tidy. On the other side, where cleaning was
:27:44. > :27:48.withdrawn for 24 hours, it is a totally different picture. Remember,
:27:49. > :27:55.people could not be bothered to cross the road to use an empty bin.
:27:56. > :27:59.Without the regular clean-ups going ahead, this side is filthy with
:28:00. > :28:06.overflowing bins, half eaten food, coffee cups, beer cans, sandwich
:28:07. > :28:11.wrappers, even vomit. It is time for cleaners to get back on the job. Our
:28:12. > :28:14.experiment has been a success. But that success is no kind of triumph,
:28:15. > :28:23.because what it demonstrated how much letter piles up overnight in
:28:24. > :28:27.city centres. Our hectic disposable culture is probably here to stay.
:28:28. > :28:31.But I sense a push to make the neighbourhoods look nice, to take
:28:32. > :28:35.pride in where we live. I even feel a glimmer of hope. We are turning
:28:36. > :28:44.the tide on smoking. We have grown to accept seat belts. Can we now
:28:45. > :28:47.address the matter of litter and do it soon?