Research and analysis

Litter and littering in England 2018 to 2019

Updated 13 January 2022

Applies to England

This publication explains the government’s approach to understanding the extent of litter and littering in England.

These figures are based on data from 2018 to 2019 and unless otherwise indicated, data relates to the period April 2018 to March 2019.

Although the Litter Strategy was published in April 2017, it is too soon to see any trends, or to attribute any changes to the Litter Strategy itself. The dashboard will continue to evolve as more data sources become available.

We have summarised some key figures from the data:

• percentage of sites meeting acceptable standard for litter: 94%
• cost of keeping the streets clean per household: £30
• most commonly found litter types on beaches: small plastic or polystyrene pieces and cigarette stubs
• percentage of people perceiving litter as a problem: 28%
• how engaged people are in doing something about it: 580,000 volunteers

Litter on the ground and site cleanliness

Usually, the more litter there is on the ground the greater the impact it has on how clean a place appears to be. Which in turn can affect people’s willingness to drop litter there. We use data from 4 sources to understand how much litter is found on the ground in England, and what types of items are most often found on our streets and beaches.

Measuring litter

There’s no one perfect way to measure litter – for example:

• if we measured litter by weight, we wouldn’t know if we were counting a small number of heavy items, or a large number of light items
• if we measured the number of litter items this wouldn’t necessarily reflect the impact on the way a place looks – a small number of large items might make a place appear more littered than a large number of small items
• measuring only the presence or absence of litter does not show how long the litter has been there, or how much of it is present

We are therefore publishing a ‘dashboard’ of indicators. The ‘dashboard’ covers litter from 5 angles:

• litter on the ground (including beach litter)
• public perception of litter
• cleanliness of public places
• involvement of the public in doing something about litter
• the cost to the public of keeping the streets clean

The dashboard is not a definitive measure of litter. It illustrates what is happening now using data we have available, by looking at litter from different angles.

Over time we may include additional indicators or improve existing ones if we find new suitable data emerging.

These indicators should be viewed as a group (to keep each one in context). For example, an increase in reported incidents could be because more people are getting involved in tackling litter and using an app to report problems, rather than an actual increase in litter on the ground.

All data refers to England only, unless stated otherwise.

The Litter Strategy Working Group for Data and Monitoring has identified key indicators that cover litter from different angles and so are suitable for inclusion in the dashboard and observing changes over time.

Measuring how much litter there is

Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) survey data

The Association for Public Service Excellence looked at the cleanliness of sites within England. Sites are graded by their level of cleanliness:

• grade A meaning no litter is present
• grade B meaning - the area is predominantly free with some minor instances of litter
• grade C meaning widespread distribution of litter and refuse, with minor accumulations
• grade D meaning heavily affected with litter, with significant accumulations

Grades A and B are classed as meeting an acceptable standard. For 2018 to 2019, this was 94%.

The Association of Public Service Excellence collects site cleanliness data from a number of local authorities who voluntarily provide the data. In 2018 to 2019 data was collected from 42 local authorities. Although the data was from a self-selecting sample of local authorities, the sample represented a range of geographical regions and levels of deprivation in England, based on the Index of Multiple Deprivation. In 2018 to 2019 the average number of sites that were graded as acceptable or higher was 94%.

Source: APSE Street Cleanliness Report

Limitations of this dataset

• site cleanliness measures presence of litter and how conspicuous litter is, not the quantity or composition
• differences in sampling between this year and last mean that this year’s data cannot be directly compared with last year’s, or any other previous year

There was no Local Environmental Quality Survey for England in 2018/19 so there was no figure provided here.

Great British Beach Clean data

Marine Conservation Society’s (MCS) Great British Beach Clean is an annual beach clean, run in September, where volunteers, either individuals or groups, meet to collect litter from beaches. The data is recorded by the groups as they are collecting. The data is analysed to show how many items were present per 100 metres of beach. In the Great British Beach Clean 2018, in England, there were 642 items of litter per 100 metres. This compares to 911 items of litter per 100 metres in 2017.

Types of litter	Pieces of litter found per 100 metres
Plastic and polystyrene pieces (0-50 cm)	215
Paper, cardboard and cigarette stubs	46
Plastic and polystyrene: crisps and sweets	39
Plastic and polystyrene packets: caps and lids	39
Glass (other)	36
Plastic and polystyrene: fishing net (small)	28
Plastic and polystyrene: string	27
Plastic and polystyrene: fishing line	18
Cotton bud sticks	17
Plastic and polystyrene: other	13

Source: Marine Conservation Society

Limitations of this data

• the weather before and during the beach clean will affect how much the beach has been used prior to the clean and how much litter has been washed ashore during bad weather
• beaches selected for cleaning are not consistent each year and tend to be situated in popular urban areas, and are dependent on volunteers being available

Love Clean Streets app data

Around 4,700 people used the Love Clean Streets app to report litter incidents in the year ended 31 March 2019. In total they reported around 11,300 incidents of litter from 122 local authorities.

Source: BBits – Love Clean Streets, unpublished.

Limitations of this data

• these figures cannot be directly compared with those published last year because users differ each year - new users start using the app or existing users stop using it
• this data is not geographically or nationally representative: users are (and therefore also reports) tend to be concentrated in more densely-populated areas, so they are not a representative sample of sites across the country
• the app can also be used for reporting other issues (such as fly-tipping), so its usage for litter can vary. If users are more preoccupied by other issues in their local area, usage of the app to report littering may decrease
• the quantity reported in each report will differ so some reports will be multiple amounts of litter, others will be one individual item

Types of litter

Great British Spring Clean reports

In the Great British Spring Clean 2019, composition of waste was not reported.

Great British Beach Clean

The Great British Beach Clean looks at type of litter found, and standardises it to how many items are found per 100 metres of beach. In 2018, in England, the top item found was small pieces of plastic and polystyrene (215 per 100 metres), then cigarette stubs (46 per 100 metres) and then packets - crisps, sweets, lolly, sandwich (39 per 100 metres).

Source: Marine Conservation Society

Limitations of this data

• the weather before and during the beach clean will affect how much the beach has been used prior to the clean and how much litter has been washed ashore during bad weather
• beaches selected for cleaning are not consistent each year and tend to be situated in popular urban areas, and are dependent on volunteers being available

How much littering costs

In 2018 to 2019 it cost local authorities £699 million or £30 per household to keep our streets clean. This figure does not include spending by other authorities whose role involves clearing litter, such as Highways England.

Source: MHCLG data

How big a problem do people think litter is

In April 2018 to March 2019, 28 per cent of people in England said there was a very or fairly big problem with litter and rubbish in their area. This is a slight reduction from recent years.

Source: Office for National Statistics

How engaged are people in doing something about litter

Around 560,000 people took part in the Great British Spring Clean throughout the UK, around 14,700 people took part in the Great British Beach Clean in England and 4,700 users reported litter in England via the Love Clean Streets App.

Limitations of this data

• the number of volunteers for these activities might include the same people more than once, if they attend more than one clean up or use the app