Litter-bugs cost Stockport millions each year - Stunell

3.37.01pm BST (GMT +0100) Thu 12th Jun 2008

Stockport's council tax payers are spending £2.5 million every year picking up other people's litter. That's how much the council spends cleaning up after litterbugs and fly-tippers, according to new figures.

The amount of litter dropped every year is now five times more than in the 1960s, costing the town ever increasing amounts of public money to clear up. An estimated 150,000 tonnes a year of litter is collected in Stockport, with the culprits leaving the local council to foot the bill.

Now local MP Andrew Stunell is backing a national campaign to clamp down on litterbugs and fly-tippers. The Campaign to Protect Rural England has set up the Stop the Drop campaign to try and solve the litter and fly-tipping problems blighting the towns and villages of the UK. The campaign is organising local community clean-up drives and putting pressure on Government to do more to tackle the problem.

Commenting Mr Stunell said:

"It's a disgrace that Stockport is forced to spend millions of pounds every year cleaning our streets.

"It's not just cans and packets, we've had lorry loads of old tyres dumped locally. It is important to catch and stop these people. It is not just that it is unsightly, and in some cases unsanitary and dangerous, but it is eating a hole in our council tax as well."

"If the amount of litter people are dropping is reduced, the council's budget could be much better spent elsewhere.

"I'm backing the Stop the Drop campaign to raise awareness of this scandalous situation, and I'm calling on the Government to give the campaign its full backing too."

ENDS

Notes to editors:

1. Andrew Stunell has signed the following Early Day Motion 1634 in support of the Stop the Drop campaign:

STOP THE DROP CAMPAIGN AGAINST LITTER AND FLY-TIPPING

That this House welcomes Stop the Drop, the new campaign by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) and its President Bill Bryson to clean up litter and fly-tipping in the countryside; believes that litter and fly-tipping blight too many towns, cities and rural areas and diminish the quality of the local environment across the UK; notes that the campaign calls on local authorities and other responsible bodies to make better use of powers given to them by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 to address litter and fly-tipping and punish those responsible for it; further notes that CPRE has welcomed the Government's recent announcement that there will be legislation to require supermarkets to charge for single-use plastic bags unless they make progress on a voluntary basis, but that CPRE is also calling on Ministers to give broader leadership in the fight against litter and fly-tipping; and calls on the Government to support the Stop the Drop campaign, in the first instance by examining the benefits of a deposit scheme for used drinks containers, as currently in place in a number of other countries, to encourage consumers to return and recycle those containers and to reduce their accumulation in the environment as litter.

2. For more information on the Campaign, please see: http://www.cpre.org.uk/campaigns/stop-the-drop