If you’re walking down the Chiswick High Road which type of branded litter do you think you’re most likely to see? A McDonald's carton? A sweet wrapper? A Gregg's paper bag?

No, the answer, by some distance, is a cigarette packet.

In a dramatic change from last year’s survey results, cigarette packaging now makes up more than 50 per cent of the litter on London’s streets, according to Keep Britain Tidy’s latest snapshot survey.

But locally we're are out of step with the rest of the country when it comes to which brands’ packaging mindlessly thrown on the floor.

In more than half of the places surveyed by Keep Britain Tidy it was fast-food packaging that topped the list of branded litter. Sweet-toothed litterers ensured that confectionery packaging topped the table in Gloucester and Carlisle, while some thirsty folk in Preston ensured that drinks-related litter was the most common in their hometown.

Litter is a massive problem – not just for the companies whose brands feature in the survey – and it costs us £858 million a year to clean up. Keep Britain Tidy’s celebrity ambassador TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp and some of the companies whose products end up as litter, together with voluntary groups, will be joining forces to launch a ground-breaking new campaign, Love Where You Live.

Keep Britain Tidy is now working with businesses, including McDonalds, Greggs, Wrigley and Imperial Tobacco, along with central and local government and the voluntary sector, on Love Where You Live.

Keep Britain Tidy’s chief executive Phil Barton said: "Love Where You Live is a unique campaign. It is about everyone, from individuals and community groups to local authorities and multi-national corporations, working together to transform our streets. We need to make a change so that this country is no longer a place where it is, seemingly, acceptable for some to throw litter."

March 29, 2011