Throwing litter out of your vehicle could now land you with a £150 fine, which is 50% more than the £100 you could be charged if you were caught speeding. The fine not only applies to drivers but also to passengers who litter, however it will be the driver who is sent the penalty notice to pay.
This new fine increase came into force on April 1st, 2018 and it can be charged on the spot or retrospectively with video evidence. It aims to deter people from littering and decrease a form of anti-social behaviour, which is having such devastating effects across the country’s highways.
Government crackdown on littering
The Government have decided to tackle the litter problem which can be found across the country by increasing the maximum fine from £80 to £150 starting from the 1st of April 2018. However, this comes with fears that councils struggling with funding may use this new fine to make money through hiring private firms to pursue those who have offended.
The fact that this new littering fine is more than the current speeding fine shows just how seriously the Government is taking it, and should really encourage people to stop littering and simply use bins instead. In line with this, at major service stations and motorway services, new bins with much wider openings are being rolled out so that people can drop litter into them from their cars.
The fine can be charged on the spot to anyone seen dropping litter, or throwing it from their car windows, and includes emptying car ashtrays onto the roads or pavements, or discarding food and drink wrappers out of the vehicle rather than waiting to use a bin.
In addition to this, motorists are being asked to share dashcam footage if they capture other drivers or their passengers throwing litter out of a car so that they can be tracked down and issued with a fine retrospectively.
As well as the Police, Community Support Officers, the Environment Agency, and conservation area officials will be able to fine those spotted littering, although ministers have urged that the fines are issued fairly following some unnecessarily harsh actions in the past.
For example, a lady was recently threatened with a £75 fine for tipping a stone out of her shoe which is completely unreasonable, and serious thought needs to be put into the fine before it is issued.
Fines cannot be given to anyone under the age of 10, and the minimum penalty is currently £50 although this will be rising to £65 in April 2019.
Why littering needs to stop
In a Government study, over 80% of the public stated that they supported higher fines for littering as cleaning up this rubbish costs around £700 million per year, which takes a big chunk out of the budget required to keep the road network well maintained.
Environment Minister Therese Coffey hopes that the increased fine will help to tackle anti-social behaviour by targeting those throwing litter out of a vehicle, or dropping it as they are walking.
Not only is littering costing councils’ money, but it also has a very negative effect on the environment as it can contaminate natural water sources, harm wildlife, attract vermin, and facilitates the breeding of bacteria, which is why it is important that people take notice of this new fine, refrain from littering in the future, or report anyone they see littering if they have video evidence to prove it.
How to prevent littering
The best way to ensure that you do not litter from your car, and avoid the potential £150 fine, is to invest in a car bin or always have a plastic bag to hand which can be used to keep rubbish in until you get to your destination.
You should also make your passengers aware that they should not throw litter from the car as this could also mean that you end up getting fined, especially young children who cannot be fined themselves but may not understand the consequences of their actions if they do discard rubbish out of the car windows.
Whenever you stop the car for a break on a long journey or at your end destination take the litter out with you and dispose of it. As mentioned earlier, some service stations now have wide-mouthed bins so you don’t even need to leave the vehicle to dispose of the litter.
Do you think that the increased littering fine of £150 is fair? Would you expect to be fined more for littering than for speeding? Let us know in the comments below.
Should be a minimum fine of £150 to make people think twice. Don’t ‘always have a plastic bag to hand’ you’ll just be adding to the problem of plastic pollution. Just be responsible.
if the police spent less time looking for naughty tweets and a***book postings, perhaps they could actually combat real crime.
Those tweets etc help reduce children being abused. You’re a c**k
Shame it doe’s not stop tweeters like you Simon from making idiotic and abusive personel comments.
About time! Some years ago I followed a car and a pair of trainers were thrown out of the car. I reported this to the local authority with registration number but they could not do anything as I could not prove who actually threw them out !
Just try reporting mobile phone drivers to the police and wait for the lack of interest. This is just another smoke and mirrors exercise. It will have no effect whatsoever.
I have no problem with local authorities employing private firms to deal with this as a way of making money. As long as it stops the disgusting practice of littering our countryside, then it will achieve its aim. Only one proviso; measures will have to be put in place to prevent “shady” private companies from exploiting motorists eg video evidence.
I think fines are not going to be effective. Who has the time? Yet the problem is huge, i travel all the time and the litter on the sides of the roads is disgusting. I am appalled at my fellow mankind. Do people have no pride in their country. Am I being racist in suggesting this has increased as our immigration has increased, or is it that the council have stopped picking up the rubbish from the sides of the roads, due to cutbacks. What ever is happening the littering is far worse than it ever used to be. But the roads are also busier than they ever used to be. Go to New Zealand and the verges are clean and unlettered.
Just returned from Malaysia and Borneo. Hardly any road side litter.
NO plastic wrappers to be seen in supermarkets on fruit and veg. Same on road side stalls selling same. All of the Euro and UK rules re wrappings, like many other idiotic laws and rules, are made by unelected faceless money grabbing people who have to do something less the lose their job.
It is incorrect to suggest that it’s immigrants that are causing the problem. Many other countries have more immigrants than the UK has, yet they have far less litter.
In the US, they teach kids in their first few years of schooling that littering is bad, and then these kids go home and educate their parents. It obviously works, because I’ve seen less litter in my many travels across the USA than in any other country other than Japan.
Mac Donald’s rubbish is the main problem. Also this ridiculous fad for a coffee to go. But nothing is done about flytippers or mobile phones. Fines do not work
Fly tippers should also be made to go out with council team and made to clear up fly tipped rubbish others have left on top of any fines and confiscation of vehicle used in their offence.
I agree that this should be a fixed penalty of £150 – not a maximum of £150.
Some fines are imposed for simple mistakes, and there should be some allowance for adjustments in certain cases, but littering is deliberate action by a few uncaring individuals. Well it’s time they were taught to care, and this is a good first step.
Disappointingly this article omitted to point us to where we send our dashcam clips when we see littering happening. If there were a simple website to which we could send our clips, without getting involved as personal witnesses, people would actually do it. How do we find out where to send these clips?
This information has not been verified, but it is hoped that local councils will set up some sort of a platform to encourage people. As we could not find any direct examples, we did not put it in, but government legislation suggests that something will be done, see here for more: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2018/9780111163818/regulation/20
No maximum penalty for any offence so that anyone could be given life for any offence at the discretion of the juditory
Good. The amount of litter on highway verges is appalling.
I put litter in the rear footwell.
I have heard remarks that
someone will clean it up, in my area that is down to volunteers because the local councils are cash strapped. On major roads the cost of clean up is considerable because of the need for mobile lane closures to protect the workers.I would not be surprised that the moaners about lack of local council amenities are the same ones who litter our countryside!
Where is the email address to send all the ‘dashcam’ videos too? The Police can’t even be bothered to prosecute dangerous drivers. They only appeal for dashcam videos after the incident.
This information has not been verified, but it is hoped that local councils will set up some sort of a platform to encourage people. As we could not find any direct examples, we did not put it in, but government legislation suggests that something will be done, see here for more: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2018/9780111163818/regulation/20
I’m entirely in favour of this increased fine. The road network is covered in rubbish everywhere you look. When you go to Germany you see very little roadside rubbish so I’m sure we can and should raise our standards and take some pride in our country.
The cost of removing and recycling is however astronomical and this could be reduced by using supervised prisoners to collect it and reduce their sentences as a means to reduce the prison population and promoting the work ethic.
In Krakow in Poland this year there was no litter to be seen anywhere Just a British problem is it
I when to Japan last year and saw three bits of litter in three weeks. Its a culture change that is needed. The Japanese taken pride in their environment.
It’s a good idea but I would like to see some proof that offenders are being prosecuted. I also think that low risk prisoners should be tasked with cleaning up the litter.
Yes I totally agree with you that offenders should clean up the environment. Also it should be taught from an early age how precious our environment is and not too plague it with litter.
Not only prisoners but those unemployed getting state aid.
No, the fine should be at least a £1000 cancel their drivers license and confiscate all the owners vehicles.
Rather over the top dint you think. I’m against littering but really.
Agree with the fine. We have a MacDonald’s about 0.75 of a mile which seems to be the optimum distance for eating and throwing out the rubbish to land in my driveway.
Scrap the car the rubbish is coming from, let the driver worry about whos car it is, no need for a fine or penalty points
About time too .. Im sick of it where I live its unbelievable
Anybody who drives along the A34 going north from Winchester can only be appalled at the level of litter in the verges and central reservation. Use the fines to fund council clean-ups???
As I’ve noted elsewhere the A34 in the Abingdon/Oxford area is disgraceful.
The green brigade has taken over from the do-gooders wait and see what next?
When caught (not much chance there mind, policing is done with little grey and yellow boxes nowadays), they should stick a nice hi-viz vest on them, give them a big black bag and a litter picker and make them spend the whole day trawling the verges cleaning up what they and other pathetic, selfish, vermin have thrown from their cars. Fines don’t work. I know numerous people that collect points for speeding like Nectar points and despite forking out £200 for getting nabbed on their phones still go about with one glued to their ear. Publicly shaming them and confiscating handsets is the only way forward.
we see a minority of mindless morons who think it is okay to throw rubbish from their vehicle ruining the countryside. Instead of finning them perhaps we ought to make them clean up the rubbish instead.
Do both.
Many drivers caught drifting over the speed limit by a few mph do not do it intentionally but throwing litter out of your car is an intentioal act just like dropping litter in the street. I agree with the fine but that is not enough, any person caught for dropping litter or throwing litter from a car should be forced to carry out at least 20 hours duty picking up litter, failure to complete the task within a limited time should result in the car being confiscated for at least a month with charges to confiscate, store and reclaim, incidents not involving a car should fined £1,000 for failing to cary out the duty, no exceptions for being poor or suffering hardship. People claiming to be unable to carry out duty due to disability and wheelchair users should be made to sort the rubbish collected. All offenders should be named and shamed with a photo in local press.
Big Brother is watching you – lots of Big Brothers now. How long until it becomes mandatory for dashcam footage to be hackable, I wonder? Every telephone call is monitored already, for instance, as is all internet traffic There is no privacy. On a general note, littering is a nuisance and the culprits should be shamed – it is pure laziness, after all – but as noted in the article we need to be careful of the phenomenon of local authorities establishing revenue-targeted squads with overzealous charging habits. Revenue targets create bad feelings – it’s common in the USA for instance for the police to be routinely underfunded, in the expectation that officers will raise revenue from the most stringent application of fines for anything they deem worthy. This means that highway police in the USA are hated even more than British motorway police.
I offered the police local to myself dashcam footage of a driver throwing his macdonalds out of the window, they were not interested. They said contact the council. the council never followed up my email. gave up. i hate litter
I live in the country and hate irresponsible littering, especially the McDonalds packaging. However, since childhood, I was always taught that disposal of biodegradable material such as apple cores into hedge rows is entirely acceptable and in fact good for the countryside.
The margins of the A34 near where I live in Oxfordshire are disgraceful. It’s worth noting that the situation improves when you go from one local authority area to another, but the local authority should not have to clear the highway margins.
I’m all for it, where do we send the dashcam footage?
Stop charging for DIY waste at recycling centres which discourages people from disposing of things in an environmentally safe manner.
This would not stop people dumping rubbish from a car
I totally agree with this move and I think the £150 fine should be a flat fine not discretionary. However, for littering to be a higher fine than speeding is ludicrous. Speeding can cause serious injury or death clearly this should attract a higher fine than littering.
Road from Ross on Wye to Monmouth is appaling
I litter pick in a rural area it is disgusting .Every.beauty spot is trashed . With this constant need to eat and drink junk food .. Every shop must have a notice every one can see warning the dangers of littering also the fine ( Which should be higher these lazy selfish people are poisoning our planet ) a big shock to wake them up…..
The litter near me is in the water ditches so plastic and tin is leeching into our water supply .
More notices on roads to warn of the high fine and dangers to our health .
Every radio should put out the warnings regularly to make the people who are in their car so ,they might think twice about throwing litter . Why not put adverts out on the TV .they did when I was younger I still remembee them to day ..fun ones for children to remember . Blue peter .one show .country file they could all give the message out .
Every local paper to have regular pieces on litter and the dangers . You hear a bit then it goes quiet ……… it will have to a long process. Before you see a difference ….
.The lanes ….the by passes. And motorways could have cameras on black spots to catch the culprits name and shame . Move them Around so cover more places so people will not know where they are
…Notices on every motowAy junction . To warn of the penalties to drop littter
It makes Me sick to see the amount of litter I felt like crying after going to visit some one in Gabowen hospital it was distrusting ….. the DAFT PART there is no need for any of it ……if you can carry it full carry it home empty . Parents who do not care the children won’t care. Educate the parents .
Keep wales tidy I am going on local radio to high light problem