Littering
Did You Know How Much Litter Is Dropped in the UK Every Day?
Street cleaning costs the taxpayer over £1 billion a year.
Despite having over a thousand litter bins across our district, people still choose to drop their rubbish on the ground. This not only harms wildlife, killing millions of animals, but also makes our district look untidy and unloved. Discarding any kind of litter is a criminal offence.
The most littered item? Yes, you guessed it, cigarette butts!
Globally, five trillion cigarette butts are littered every year. In the UK, they account for 40% of all litter. Around three million cigarette butts are discarded daily—dropped on pavements or thrown from cars.
Each one can take up to 12 years to fully degrade. Many end up in our waterways and eventually in the sea, where they cause serious harm to marine life. Just one cigarette butt can contaminate 1,000 litres of water.
Cigarette filters don’t break down quickly. They contain over 4,000 chemicals and microplastics, including hydrogen cyanide, arsenic, and cellulose acetate, all of which can leach toxins into the environment.
Take a close look at any street and you’ll likely see cigarette litter. It is a criminal offence to litter cigarett butts, just the same as discarding a can, bottle, or empty packet.
All of this could be prevented if everyone simply used one of the many bins provided and took responsibility for their litter.
Facts
- 75% of smokers admit to littering their cigarette butts.
- 86% of smokers are aware that littering cigarettes is illegal.
- Cigarettes are not natural or biodegradable.
- Around 200 million cigarette butts are littered in the UK every day.
- Cigarette filters have been found in the stomachs of fish, birds, whales, and other marine animals that mistake them for food.
- Folkestone & Hythe District Council issues around 100 Fixed Penalty Notices each year for littering offences.
We often see people just feet away from a bin who still choose to drop their cigarette butts on the ground. Each time we approach someone after witnessing this, we hope our intervention changes their behaviour—and that they think twice before doing it again. Especially now, as littering a cigarette could cost them £150.
Recently, a litter-picking group in Yorkshire found crisp packets in a hedge. Sadly, that’s not unusual, except these were from 1975! This just goes to show that discarded rubbish doesn’t simply disappear; it can remain in our environment for decades.
We only have one planet, so we must consider the consequences of littering. That piece of rubbish might just outlive you.