Policy paper

Litter strategy for England: annual report (2019 to 2022)

Updated 26 August 2022

England’s first litter strategy was published in April 2017. It set out 36 commitments and actions to contribute to our aim to clean up the country and deliver a substantial reduction in litter and littering within a generation. This report, which covers the period from April 2019 to March 2022 as a result of delays caused by coronavirus (COVID-19), sets out our progress against these commitments.

Since the litter strategy was published over five years ago there have been several key policy developments. This includes consultations on the collection and packaging reforms and the publication of the build back better high streets strategy. Many of the commitments have also either been completed (or are nearing completion) or been superseded.

We will therefore reflect on whether the commitments need refreshing so that they continue to provide the best framework for tackling litter through education and awareness, enforcement and cleaning. This will therefore be the last annual report that sets out progress against the litter strategy in its current form.

Education and awareness

Commitment 1: Develop a baseline and an affordable, impartial, statistically robust and proportionate methodology for assessing and monitoring the extent of litter in England.

Status: completed – see the 2017 to 2018 annual report for more details.

Commitment 2: Deliver a world class national anti-littering campaign.

The ‘Keep it, Bin it’ campaign, launched in 2018 with Keep Britain Tidy, has brought together commercial partners to encourage people to responsibly dispose of their litter. The campaign, which Defra will continue to support, has been publicised through various media channels. Most notably targeted social media adverts online, as well as digital display sites at travel hubs across England thanks to advertising space provided by partners. From autumn 2019, the campaign also partnered with a number of motorway service providers to help spread the ‘Keep it, Bin it’ message to as wide an audience as possible.

The COVID-19 pandemic required a shift in how we campaigned against littering. Consequently, in the summer of 2020, Defra developed a ‘Respect the Outdoors’ campaign to encourage people to follow the Countryside Code and to highlight the impacts of littering in light of more people spending time outdoors. The campaign, which was partly funded by the ‘Keep it, Bin it’ partner contributions, was promoted both online and in locations across the country near to urban parks, beaches and national parks. We also supported and provided funding for Keep Britain Tidy’s ‘Love Parks’ campaign, which encouraged people to treat our parks with respect.

Evaluation of these campaigns suggests that they had a positive influence on the target audience’s intended disposal of personal protective equipment (PPE), with anecdotal reports from local authorities that the intervention resulted in a markedly beneficial outcome.

We have also used social media to raise awareness of the impacts of littering and how everyone can play their part by deposing of their rubbish responsibly.

Commitment 3: Review existing teaching materials, make sure that they meet teachers’ needs and are easily accessible to them. We will also seek to link any new teaching materials to the proposed national communication campaign, to ensure that young people receive consistent messages about litter.

See commitment 4 for an update on the progress with this commitment.

Commitment 4: Work with the National Citizen Service, the Scouts Association, and other organisations that work with teenagers and young adults, to discourage littering and raise awareness of the environmental and economic costs of dropping litter.

We want every child to have the opportunity to learn about the impacts of litter. We have identified many resources available for schools and other institutions to use should they wish to teach pupils about the impact of litter and the importance of not littering. Furthermore, the Eco-Schools programme, run in England by Keep Britain Tidy, works with schools to change littering habits. At the moment, around 80% of schools in England are participating in this programme to improve sustainability and reduce waste in their schools and communities. That number has grown since the publication of the litter strategy, putting more young people at the heart of environmental issues, and we would like to increase participation further.

To ensure these resources are easily accessible, we will consider developing a website that acts as a one stop shop and highlights other useful information on tacking litter.

The previous annual report explained how the ‘Keep It, Bin It’ campaign had been integrated into Mars Wrigley Confectionery’s Bin It! schools programme. In 2019, the roadshow conducted 199 shows across 157 schools, reaching over 28,000 pupils aged 11 to 13. Since 2006, the programme has visited over 1,100 schools in the UK, reaching almost 250,000 pupils.

While Bin It! has been unable to deliver the roadshow in schools due to restrictions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the programme has found new and exciting ways to engage students and young people in responsible litter disposal. In November 2020, Bin It! ran the national ‘Bin It Your Way’ Twitter competition in partnership with the Lionesses - England women’s football team.

In 2021, Bin It! introduced a new media competition that challenged students to create an advert that will inspire young adults aged 14 to 18 to think about their own littering behaviour and make a positive change. Alongside this, Bin It! launched ‘The Complete Guide’, a new series of educational films for schools aimed at pupils aged 11 to 13 to spread the Bin It! message whilst the roadshow was unable to run in person performances.

Commitment 5: Continue to support and endorse national clean-up days such as the Great British Spring Clean, and the Great British Beach Clean, and to use central government’s influence to encourage participation and support by as many people and businesses as possible.

We are a proud to support and endorse national clean-up days such as the Great British Beach Clean, run by the Marine Conservation Society, and the Great British Spring Clean, run by Keep Britain Tidy and will continue to do so.

The 2019 British Beach Clean took place from 20 to 23 September 2019. Over 10,000 volunteers helped clean 437 beaches across the UK and removed 10,833kg of litter. Speaking at the launch of the clean, Rebecca Pow, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at Defra said: “Litter blights our beaches and threatens our ocean life. Thanks in part to the efforts of countless volunteers across the UK each year, we can help to keep them clean and protect the wildlife that lives there. But we can’t just deal with the damage caused by litter and plastic pollution – we need to tackle this issue at source and we are taking action. I encourage everyone to take part in this year’s Great British Beach Clean and to do their bit to help protect our environment. It can also be great fun.”

The 2020 Great British Beach Clean was downsized due to COVID-19, and small groups, friends, families and ‘bubbles’ took part. Across 459 events, 2,124 volunteers took part, finding an average of 425 items of litter per 100m of UK shoreline. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Great British Spring Clean was postponed, and took place from 11 to 27 September 2020 under the title of the Great British September Clean.

The 2021 Great British Beach Clean saw 6,176 volunteers collect a total of 5065kg of litter throughout one week in September. The results show that the average amount of litter per 100m recorded in 2021 was lower than the two previous years. The 2021 Great British Spring Clean took place between the 28 May and 13 June and saw volunteers pledge to make 1.15 million miles of British outdoor spaces cleaner and greener. In support of the event, Defra ministers encouraged everyone to get involved to help set the tone for the summer ahead by showing that litter is not acceptable, and that people care deeply about protecting their local environment.

National Highways also contributed to Keep Britain Tidy reaching their million miles target in their sixth annual involvement with the Great British Spring Clean. 7,856 bags of rubbish were collected over the two-week campaign period on the Strategic Road Network.

In February 2022 Jo Churchill, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at Defra, spoke at the launch of the seventh annual Great British Spring Clean, pledging to take part in Keep Britain Tidy’s ‘Big Bag Challenge,’ and encouraging citizens to clear their streets, parks and beaches in their local area. To further support the Spring Clean and Keep Britain Tidy’s vision for a litter-free future, Minister Churchill also undertook a litter pick in her Suffolk constituency, Bury St. Edmunds

Engaging local communities

Commitment 6: Explore the barriers to engaging and involving citizens in tackling litter and improving local places, and to recommend steps to address them.

We continue to hear about the willingness of citizens to get involved in tackling litter and improving local places in a variety of ways all over the country. We have therefore focused on recognising their efforts and supporting clean up initiatives. See commitment 5 (supporting national clean-up days), 8 (recognising voluntary contributions) and 9 (encourage councils and others to achieve the highest standards of local environment quality) for more details.

Commitment 7: Ensure that participation in The Great British Spring Clean and other organised litter-picking activity is formally recognised in progress towards existing qualifications, awards or badges by the National Citizen Service and the Scouts Association.

In our 2018 to 2019 annual report, we explained how Scouts were taking part in the ‘A Million Hands’ community action programme, as well as the development of the ‘Tide Turners Plastic Challenge’ badge for Girl Guides, Scouts and other youth networks.

Scouts have now developed the Litter Splitter activity in partnership with Generation Green. Scouts can work towards the Community Impact staged activity badge by litter picking and exploring how the items we use in everyday life can affect our environment.

Commitment 8: Explore further how best to acknowledge and recognise the voluntary contributions made by individuals to tackling litter.

Through the Prime Minister’s Points of Light awards, we have recognised the outstanding work of individual volunteers in their communities and will continue to do so through this and other means.

Recipients of the award over this period include:

• Andy Dinsdale, who created the Strandliners initiative to train hundreds of members of the public as citizen scientists
• Lizzie Carr MBE, who launched the successful #PlasticPatrol campaign which inspired thousands of people to take to their local waterways and work together to plastic pollution
• Dom Ferris, founder of Trash Free Trails, which brings together riders, runners and roamers in Britain’s national parks and wild spaces to tackle plastic pollution

Commitment 9: Support and encourage councils and other land-managers to aspire to achieve the highest standards of local environment quality, and to apply for these awards to ensure that their efforts are recognised.

The £9.75 million High Streets Community Clean-Up Fund, announced in March 2019, empowered local authorities across England to support their communities in undertaking community-led high street clean-ups.

Local authorities used the funding to good effect in their communities, seeing the Clean-Up Fund as an opportunity to work with their local communities – many in creative, innovative ways – to help improve their high streets. Local authorities partnered with existing community groups to undertake not just community clean-ups and litter picks, but a wide range of clean-up activities.

Going forward, we will celebrate clean high streets through a National High Streets Day. A day where we can ensure our high streets are as clean as possible that will help to provide vibrant high streets that communities can be proud of, increasing footfall in the process.

See also commitment 32 (guidance on binfrastructure) and 35 (spreading best practice in street cleansing) for other ways we have supported, or will be supporting, councils and other land managers aspire to achieve the highest standards of local environment quality.

Making a compelling business case

Commitment 10: Encourage all businesses to work in partnership with their local communities to help tackle littering near their premises and create clean, welcoming public spaces which are attractive to customers and staff.

In September 2020, Defra Ministers held a roundtable with large fast-food retailers to understand what action they are taking now to tackle the litter created by their products. It was encouraging to hear about the initiatives they are working on and, more importantly, that they are committed to delivering lasting change by working together to tackle what is an industry wide issue.

Since then, McDonalds, in partnership with Ellipsis Earth and Hubbub, has funded a litter prevention campaign in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, that used drone technology and Artificial Intelligence to conduct a thorough litter survey. Using this data, environmental charity Hubbub installed installations to tackle littering. This included implementing bins that display anti-littering messages in strategically placed areas. The findings from the survey have shown a 75% decrease in litter in hotspots.

KFC has created a dedicated Litter Line mailbox, giving anyone concerned about KFC litter direct access to the company. They are also introducing new training for its 28,000 team members to increase their knowledge of the environmental impact of litter.

We will continue to encourage businesses to do what they can to tackle litter. The National High Streets Day will also provide local communities and businesses an opportunity to come together to celebrate and clean up litter and graffiti.

Commitment 11: Explore different voluntary and/or regulatory options and measures to improve recycling and reuse of packaging, and to reduce the incidence of commonly littered items.

Work under this commitment has been taken forward as part of the policies being developed below.

Deposit return scheme

In its manifesto, the government committed to introduce a deposit return scheme (DRS) for drinks containers to incentivise people to recycle. We expect the introduction of a DRS to reduce littering and increase recycling of in-scope containers, provide higher quality recyclate for reprocessors and change consumer behaviours with potential knock-on effects for other environmental activities.

We have now consulted twice on introducing a DRS in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with the most recent consultation held last year. In March of this year, we announced what the scope of the scheme will be, and we continue to work on finalising the remainder of the policy with a view to publishing a full government response in due course.

Extended producer responsibility for packaging

In response to the 2019 consultation on extended producer responsibility for packaging the government commissioned an evidence project to better understand and estimate the costs of managing packaging in the litter stream. Read the Financial cost of packaging litter – final report (WRAP).

On 26 March 2022, the UK Government published its response to the 2021 consultation on Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging. This response includes the UK Government’s commitment to obligating businesses who sell packaging which is commonly found in local authority managed street bins to pay the costs of managing this waste.

Smoking related litter

Despite smoking rates in England being at their lowest recorded level, cigarette butts continue to be the most commonly littered item in England. Defra’s latest litter composition study, carried out by Keep Britain Tidy, found on average that of every 100 littered items, 66 were cigarette butts and 2 were other smoking related litter. Read Keep Britain Tidy’s Litter Composition Analysis Summary Report (PDF).

Defra Ministers held a roundtable in September 2020 with representatives from the tobacco industry, Keep Britain Tidy, Action on Smoking and Health and the Department of Health and Social Care to explore what more could be done to tackle smoking related litter. Having considered the available evidence, the government has decided that a regulatory approach may now be required to ensure that the industry takes sufficient financial responsibility for the litter created by its products and to prevent them from undermining public health policy. Research into the available options began in November 2021 and is expected to be completed in August 2022.

To support this research, in November 2021 we launched a call for evidence on problematic plastics through which future policy options for tackling cigarette filter litter will also be explored. The call for evidence closed for responses in February 2022. We are currently analysing the responses and will publish our response in due course.

Chewing gum

In August 2021, we announced that major chewing gum producers, brought together by Defra, had signed up to a new partnership, known as the Chewing Gum Task Force, that will see them invest up to £10 million over five years. The investment will be used to clean up historic gum staining and encourage people to bin their gum. The scheme will be managed by independent charity Keep Britain Tidy.

Commitment 12: Develop a suitable voluntary Code on placing anti-litter messaging on packaging and at point of sale, and promote this online, through social media and PR.

Status: industry led commitment - not discussed in this report.

Commitment 13: Consider the role packaging design could play in reducing litter and littering behaviour.

We have published reports from both Keep Britain Tidy and the Advisory Committee on Packaging (ACP) on the influence of packaging design on littering behaviour:

• Keep Britain Tidy - Packaging Design and Litter (PDF)
• Advisory Committee on Packaging – Litter Task Force report (PDF)

We will continue to consider the recommendations made by these reports in our policy making going forward and encourage the take-up of these recommendations by packaging manufacturers and designers.

The government response to the consultation on extended producer responsibility for packaging, published in March 2022, confirmed our proposals to require producers to label primary and shipment packaging as ‘recycle’ or ‘do not recycle’ and to adopt a single label format which incorporates the Recycle Now symbol. All primary packaging (except for plastic films and flexibles) will be required to be labelled as ‘recycle’ or ‘do not recycle’ by 31 March 2026. Plastic film and flexible packaging will need to be labelled by 31 March 2027. This will make it easier for consumers to do the right thing and reduce confusion over what packaging is recyclable.

Commitment 14: Promote the FPA’s voluntary Code of Practice and the Sustainable Packaging Checklist and encourage their adoption by manufacturers and retailers of other types of packaging.

Status: industry led commitment - not discussed in this report.

Commitment 15: Continue to seek ways to increase the reach of Chewing Gum Action Group’s work.

Status: superseded – see commentary on chewing gum in commitment 11.

Commitment 16: Publish research on best practice in removing gum.

Status: superseded – see commentary on chewing gum in commitment 11.

Commitment 17: Review and update guidance on “Reducing litter caused by ‘food on the go’: A voluntary code of practice for local partnerships”.

Status: delayed.

Commitment 18: Review the case for increasing the fixed penalties for littering.

Status: completed – see 2017 to 2018 annual report and 2018 to 2019 annual report for more details.

Commitment 19: Lay Regulations which allow English councils to fine the keeper of a vehicle from which litter is thrown.

Status: completed – see 2017 to 2018 annual report and 2018 to 2019 annual report for more details.

Improving enforcement

Commitment 20: Continue to work with stakeholders to deal with fly-tipping and ensure that the right enforcement tools are available to local authorities to tackle the issue.

Defra continue to chair the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group to explore ways to tackle fly-tipping. The group has been developing a guide on how to present robust prosecutions to as a means of ensuring fly-tipping sentences reflect the severity of the crime. The group intends to publish the guide in the spring.

In August 2019 we published a research project on public awareness of, and adherence to, the household waste duty of care. We also published materials to help householders better understand their responsibilities under the household waste duty of care. All these materials have been provided to the Local Government Association and are also available on the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group’s website.

Budget 2020 allocated up to £2 million to support innovative solutions to tackle fly-tipping. Using this funding, in April 2021 we commissioned a research project considering the drivers, deterrents and impacts of fly-tipping. This research project will support informed policy making and is due to be published in the spring. We have also announced that we will be providing small grants to several local authorities to help them implement solutions at known fly-tipping hotspots, such as installation of CCTV.

A consultation on reform of the waste carrier, broker, and dealer regime was launched in January 2022, alongside another consultation setting out our proposals for the introduction of mandatory digital waste tracking. It sets out how the waste tracking service could work, including how it would help householders check that waste collected from them by someone other than the local authority has been taken to an appropriate destination.

The Environment Act, which received royal assent in November 2021, includes several measures to ensure agencies and authorities can work more effectively to combat waste crime through better access to evidence and improved powers of entry.

Going forward, we will also undertake a research project which considers the effectiveness of the different enforcement options available to local authorities, the barriers they face in implementing these and any further research needed.

Commitment 21: Promote the use of Community Protection Notices to deal with businesses or individuals whose behaviour is having a detrimental effect on the quality of life of those in the locality.

In January of this year, the Home Office updated statutory guidance to support local agencies to make effective use of these powers. In July the Beating Crime Plan laid out the government’s plan for tackling crime and its commitment to working with local agencies and partners to drive down anti-social behaviour (ASB) using the full range of powers and tools in the 2014 Act. This includes exploring how ASB powers like the Civil Penalty Notice (CPN) can be used to full effect.

Commitment 22: Publish improved guidance to promote proportionate and responsible enforcement.

See commitment 23 for an update on the progress with this commitment.

Commitment 23: Promote transparency and accurate reporting of enforcement action against littering.

The Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse was updated in September 2019 to include guidance to councils and others on the use of their fixed penalty powers for littering and related offences. Appropriate, effective and transparent use of enforcement powers will help duty bodies to keep relevant land clear of litter and refuse. It includes guidance on how to operate a fair and effective enforcement system through the keeping of records and explains that enforcement authorities should report regularly and consistently to help the public understand and accept enforcement and council use of taxpayers’ money. It also sets out that in no circumstances should enforcement be considered a means to raise revenue. Jo Churchill, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at Defra, wrote to leaders of councils in England to remind them of this. Read the letter from Jo Churchill.

The Environment Act gives us powers to further promote proportionate and responsible enforcement. Specifically, it will allow for our enforcement guidance to be placed on a firm statutory footing and enable us to ensure that enforcement powers are used with a high degree of professionalism by providing powers to prescribe conditions that must be met by enforcement officers. When we come to exercise these powers, we will consult local authorities to understand any new burdens that they may face.

Commitment 24: Raise councils and magistrates’ awareness of the range of sanctions available for littering and fly tipping offences, including alternatives to fixed penalties.

The 2018 to 2019 annual report explained how we worked with the Sentencing Council to improve the guidance for magistrates on sentencing for environmental offences. We have also committed in the Resources and Waste Strategy to increase magistrates’ awareness of the prevalence and importance of waste crime.

Better cleaning and litter infrastructure

Commitment 25: Identify opportunities for improvement in the cleaning of the Strategic Road Network.

See commitment 26 for an update on the progress with this commitment.

Commitment 26: Put in place measures to deliver a lasting improvement in cleanliness at 25 priority litter hotspots on the Strategic Road Network.

The government and National Highways remain committed to delivering their vision of a network predominantly free from litter, without compromising safety and delivered affordably. National Highways continues to embed stakeholder collaboration to share best practice and encourage effective partnership working in respect of litter clearance on the Strategic Road Network and is exploring how technology can be harnessed and used as a tool to help reduce littering and litter on the network. In collaboration with Keep Britain Tidy, they have undertaken research to fully understand who litters and why littering occurs from vehicles. Using the insight from the research National Highways will be carrying out targeted positive behavioural change interventions in collaboration with key stakeholders.

In a new trial, National Highways will also be collecting evidence of littering across the network and working with the appropriate Litter Authorities to encourage prosecution. The trial will explore the effectiveness of prosecution in reducing the amount of litter on the Strategic Road Network.

For the second road period (2020 to 2025) National Highways has developed a performance indicator to drive better litter cleaning. As with other performance indicators, National Highways’ performance on this metric will be reported to the Office of Rail and Road and published as appropriate to ensure transparency for road users. A customer service standard has also been introduced regarding the removal of litter on National Highways’ Strategic Road Network, this defines what customers can expect and the role National Highways plays in improving customer satisfaction. This new standard ensures a nationally consistent approach to reducing litter, refuse and fly-tipping.

The National Highways litter strategy now contains an updated map of the Strategic Road Network outlining sweeping and cleaning responsibility on motorways and trunk roads – this makes it easier for customers and stakeholders to understand where the responsibility lies for clearing litter from motorways and trunk roads.

In addition to routine litter picking, National Highways continues to monitor and take steps to address 25 key litter hotspots with thousands of bags of litter removed from these locations (2,999 in 2019 to 2020 and 9,081 in 2020 to 2021).

National Highways is using insight to understand their customers’ priorities to focus their maintenance activities in areas that their customers consider important. Specifically, this has enabled National Highways to identify new areas where littering is a concern.

Commitment 27: Commission and publish an independent assessment of road cleanliness.

See commitment 29 for an update on the progress with this commitment.

Commitment 28: Reallocate responsibility for managing relevant cleaning activities from any local authority that is not fulfilling its statutory duties on the road network, and consider how to provide a mechanism to recover the cost of these activities from local authorities.

See commitment 29 for an update on the progress with this commitment.

Commitment 29: Explore and identify means to address the practical barriers to keeping our roadsides clear of litter, including issues relating to both cleaning and litter-prevention.

On Defra’s behalf, in 2018 Keep Britain Tidy carried out a pilot survey of roadside cleanliness on those parts of the Strategic Road Network which are litter-picked by local authorities. In 2019 Defra engaged over 100 of those authorities in research to explore associated issues, challenges and good practice.

In October 2021, Lizzie Noel, Non-executive Director at Defra and Chair of the Rural Affairs Board, held a roundtable to consider further solutions to the problem of roadside litter. The roundtable was attended by the Department for Transport (DfT), the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), several local authorities, and key stakeholders such as National Highways and Keep Britain Tidy, who discussed current practices and explored how they can support the reduction of roadside litter.

Working with DfT and DLUHC, we will be taking the following next steps:

National Highways Collaboration Pack

In the litter strategy, National Highways committed to “continue to embed the stakeholder collaboration pack in its regions, to share as best practice and encourage effective partnership working in respect of litter clearance on the network.” The questionnaire of local authorities showed that awareness of the National Highways ‘Tackling Litter Together’ pack was limited amongst respondents.

National Highways is collating a pack specifically designed for local authorities and is working with DfT to publish this document in the summer.

National Highways Litter Champions

We have identified a need to further highlight the role of the National Highways Litter Champion. This voluntary position, supported by National Highways, aims to encourage good practice when organising and delivering the successful coordination of traffic management sharing.

National Highways, Defra and DfT are committed to ensuring local authorities are better aware of their National Highways Litter Champion. The role of these individuals is essential to delivering a more cost effective, safer approach to roadside cleansing.

Transfer of responsibility

Defra, DfT and DLUHC are committed to further investigation of the steps needed to determine whether it is in the best public interest to reallocate responsibility for managing relevant cleaning activities from a local authority that is not meeting its statutory duties on the road network to National Highways. Work will also be undertaken to better understand the impact that transferring cleansing responsibility would have on roadside cleanliness and implications for funding.

Effective enforcement

Through conversations with local authorities, emerging technology providers and regional pilot schemes, Defra will endeavour to further understand how technology can be used to assist enforcement and the barriers local authorities face in taking enforcement action. These projects will inform a wider piece of research on enforcement powers for litter and fly-tipping.

Duty boundaries

This survey has highlighted cleansing issues where the duty for cleansing passes from the local authority to National Highways and vice versa.

Since the survey the maps available have been much improved. National Highways has published a map within their litter strategy, which shows the parts of the Strategic Road Network (SRN) where local authorities are responsible for cleansing, and an ordinance survey map of the SRN has become available.

Defra and DfT consider that mapping of duty boundaries is best achieved locally, allowing for full use of local knowledge and partnership working. We will continue to encourage local authorities and National Highways to work together through their National Highways Litter Champions towards improving understanding of any boundary issues which arise.

Code of Practice for Litter and Refuse review

The government has committed to update Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse, including clarifying the standards which we expect to apply to land with ‘special circumstances’ such as certain parts of high-speed roads. Defra and DfT will consider the findings of this research as part of that work.

Commitment 30: Support councils in collaborating to co-ordinate cleaning.

Defra continues to support efforts to make the legislation around littering more understandable and relevant to local authorities as well as individuals. As part of their ‘Cleaner Counties’ project the countryside charity, CPRE, published the Litter Law report in May 2020. This was researched and compiled by the Law School at the University of Essex. It reviews historic and existing laws that relate to litter on land and on water. The report considers what falls within the scope of ‘litter’ for legislative purposes, whose responsibility it is to clear litter, and what measures are available to address the problem of litter for local authorities and for other relevant bodies and individuals.

The ‘Cleaner counties’ final report (CPRE) was published in May 2022. It details how CPRE worked with local authorities, the Cleaner Essex Group, to share understanding of litter challenges, improve partnership working, and make recommendations around litter issues.

CPRE also undertook to study on the effect of COVID-19 on litter in their ‘Litter in Lockdown’ report, published in December 2020.

Commitment 31: Review the Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse, and update it as necessary, including clarifying the standards which we expect to apply to land with ‘special circumstances’.

Status: delayed.

Commitment 32: Produce guidance on “binfrastructure” (the design, number and location of public litter bins and other items of street furniture designed to capture litter).

See commitment 35 for an update on the progress with this commitment.

Commitment 33: Encourage councils to adopt a whole- business approach to tackling litter, and to consider ways to foster collaboration between contractors, waste management, street cleaning, planning and licensing teams to help ensure that impacts on litter are taken into account in decision‑making.

The ‘Build Back Better’ High Streets Strategy, sets out the actions that government will take to support councils and other land managers create cleaner high streets. In particular, this included a commitment to review planning practice guidance with a view to providing further advice on how planning conditions can be applied to prevent and clean up litter caused by the fast-food outlets.

Commitment 34: Work with local councils, ports and the haulage industry to understand the particular issues drivers face in disposing of waste along their journeys, and to identify options to improve facilities for, and communications about, proper waste disposal by UK and overseas hauliers.

National Highways has identified a knowledge gap in the specific experiences and expectations of freight drivers and has committed to engagement with the industry to better understand the problems faced. As part of this work, in January 2022 National Highways established a Professional Driver Experience Panel (PDEP) to facilitate a group of professional drivers to discuss the experiences and expectations of this critical user group and will be recruiting professional drivers to the panel over the next few months.

Commitment 35: Spread best-practice in street cleaning and reducing littering, including learning from international experience and implementation / evaluation of innovative new approaches.

On behalf of Defra and DLUHC, the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) published guidance in October 2020 for local authorities and Business Improvement Districts in England on the provision of litter bins. Read ‘Binfrastructure’ – The right bin in the right place (WRAP).

In support of this guidance, Defra has provided almost a million pounds across 44 local authorities to help them purchase new bins.

In addition, National Highways (formerly Highways England) have taken significant steps to address binfrastructure issues in areas identified as litter ‘hotspots’.

The ‘Build Back Better’ High Streets Strategy, published on 15 July 2021, set out a range of actions the government will take to support councils and other land managers create cleaner high streets. In particular, the government committed to publishing best practice guidance for local authorities and other land managers on tackling graffiti.

Commitment 36: Launch new Litter Innovation Fund.

The Litter Innovation Fund was established to pilot and evaluate small scale anti-litter interventions, including projects specifically aimed at tackling litter in the marine environment. Across two rounds, 29 projects were funded. The projects were varied and included behavioural interventions, projects working with particular communities, and interventions to tackle litter on waterways.

Projects from the first round (2018) have now been completed and reports have been published on the Waste and Resources Action Programme’s website. Projects from the second round (2019) were stopped early in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Round two projects have written reports based on the progress they were able to make prior to being put on hold, and the outputs they were able to produce are listed on WRAP’s website.