SINCE the 1960s, litter has increased by 500% in Britain, and an eye-watering 2.1m pieces of litter are dropped every day. A new campaign called Clean Up Britain (CLUB) has been launched to combat the huge problem. Read on to find out what the campaign is doing and how you can help too…

Litter issues 

Sadly, Britain is now one of the most littered countries in Europe and it costs local councils an astonishing £1 billion a year, that’s £1,000,000,000, to clean up litter in Britain. This sort of money could pay for 60,000 new nurses, 5,000 libraries or 40 new secondary schools.

The CLUB campaign

The Clean Up Britain campaign is about changing the attitudes and behaviour of the 48% of the British population – 29 million people – who admit to dropping litter.

Joining forces 

The RSPCA is a Campaign Partner of the CLUB campaign. They receive more than 7,000 phone calls a year about litter-related incidents, and their officers regularly rescue pets, farm and wild animals trapped or hurt by discarded litter.

Most recently the RSPCA have tended to:

- A fox cub with its head stuck in a dumped wheel hub

- A dog with its tongue caught in a discarded tin can

- A cow with its head stuck in a fly-tipped washing machine.

CLUB, joining forces with the RSPCA, is trying to persuade children and adults not to drop their litter on the ground because, apart from looking very unsightly, it could badly injure vulnerable animals.

Keep Scotland Beautiful

Keep Scotland Beautiful (KSB) is another Campaign Partner of CLUB. It is Scotland’s leading environmental charity and has been running anti-litter and waste awareness campaigns in Scotland for 40 years. KSB will be launching its National Spring Clean in April 2012, where many groups across Scotland take part in voluntary clean-ups or litter picks. The National Spring Clean provides an annual focus and opportunity for schools, youth clubs, environmental organisations, voluntary groups, community gatherings and businesses to play an important part in a bigger, co-ordinated anti-litter campaign.

Celebrity fans

So far 47 celebrities are supporting CLUB, including Jonny Wilkinson, Kevin Pietersen, Gabby Logan (pictured below, with husband Kenny), Steven Gerrard, Julia Bradbury, Gary Lineker, Andrew Lloyd-Webber, Mo Farah and Goldie.

How can you help? 

If you’re interested in helping or finding out more, go to the website – www.cleanupbritain.org. You can get your mum, dad, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and friends to sign a Pledge supporting the campaign. If you’d prefer to get people to sign ‘paper Pledges’, then that would be great too.

The CLUB Pledge is as follows:

“Much of Britain is covered in litter, and I pledge to do whatever I can to help clean it up. I support the efforts of the Clean Up Britain national campaign to change the attitudes and behaviour of people who drop litter.”

Words by John Read, Clean Up Britain