How your accent could determine what litter you drop
19 January 2010
A new survey by Keep Britain Tidy reveals that you could tell what city you are in just by looking at what brands are being strewn on the floor.
The anti-litter charity visited 20 towns and cities across England to see what locals were dropping on the streets.
This snapshot survey was designed to find out more about branded litter in England’s major cities.
On the whole we found the towns and city centres surveyed were in a good condition. But litter was present in all places.
Keep Britain Tidy is urging people to respect their cities and use a bin for their fast food, confectionary, or cigarette litter. People need to take pride in where they live and stop treating the streets like a dumping ground.
Our survey found fast food litter was prevalent in almost every location. But what was most interesting is that we found quite dramatic regional differences in types and brands of litter dropped.
In Manchester the most common litter was chewing gum packaging (nearly a third of the litter was gum wrappers).
In Southampton coffee cups was the most common litter followed by burger wrappers.
In Wigan chocolate wrappers were the most common followed by pie and pasty wrappings. Luton also had a high level of chocolate related litter.
In Liverpool fast food packaging was the most common followed by cans and bottles of soft drinks.
In the City of London fast food was the most common litter followed by different brands of coffee cups.
To view a city-by-city breakdown of the results click here
Not only does litter look unsightly, it is a massive problem that costs the taxpayer £780m-a-year to clean-up. Fast food litter encourages rats and litter also creates a feeling of neglect.
Keep Britain Tidy firmly believes responsibility for litter is with individuals. People need to take ownership of their actions and use a bin.
Traders, manufacturers and big brands have an essential role to play too through encouraging customers to do the right thing and use a bin.
Phil Barton, Keep Britain Tidy chief executive said: “We’ve started to do a lot more work into the brands and types of litter appearing on our streets.
“The results of this survey, while only a snapshot, point to different littering behaviours in different places.
“Ultimately we want everybody to have more respect and pride for where they live and to use a bin. Is that too much to ask? People need to take responsibility for their actions.
“During 2009 Keep Britain Tidy has been working with Greggs to tackle fast food litter and has been impressed with the company’s drive and determination to make a difference.
“The company is committed to educating its customers about litter and we are continuing to work with them to make progress in this area. It would be nice if other manufacturers would take this issue as seriously as Greggs are.
“We know that others, including McDonald’s and Wrigleys are also taking action but much more needs to be done by all companies whose packaging and wrapping contributes to the problem. Keep Britain Tidy is reminding people to use bins and also calling for action by fast food and confectionery industry as a whole.”
See the full report here