Shocking images are at the centre of a new campaign unveiled today (30 November) to crack down on littering in England.

Launched by Environment Secretary Michael Gove in partnership with environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy, and supported by some of the biggest names in retail, travel and entertainment, the campaign features poignant images of wildlife eating and getting tangled in litter, contrasted against typical excuses for people give for dropping litter. The emotive imagery demonstrates the impact that littering can have on the environment, with the RSPCA responding to 1,500 calls about litter-related incidents affecting animals every year.

This bold approach from Defra and anti-litter charity Keep Britain Tidy has already earned the backing of some of our biggest businesses with Mars Wrigley Confectionery, Greggs, McDonald’s, PepsiCo UK and Network Rail confirmed as the first tranche of campaign partners.

Today the campaign will be on display in train stations nationwide, including commuter hubs such as London Euston, Manchester Piccadilly and Birmingham New Street, as well as across partners’ social media channels and on Clear Channel’s Socialite screens. After launch, the campaign will feature at till-points in Gregg’s stores and at Cineworld cinemas through the partnership with PepsiCo UK.

As well as the environmental cost, littering also brings with it a huge financial cost. Keeping the country’s streets clean cost local government almost £700 million last year in England, much of this spent cleaning up avoidable litter. Millions of pieces of litter are dropped every day in England.

The new campaign is urging people to put their litter in a bin, or keep hold of it and put it in a bin when they see one. Empty packets and other litter should always be recycled wherever possible.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove said:

The ‘Keep it, Bin it’ campaign is a bold statement of our intent to tackle the scourge of littering. Littering is antisocial and unacceptable. It plagues our environment and poisons our wildlife.

We know we won’t achieve this ambition by working alone. That’s why I’m thrilled to see some of our biggest companies including Mars Wrigley Confectionery, Greggs, and McDonalds and the tireless campaigners at Keep Britain Tidy, joining forces with us to help improve our precious environment.

Allison Ogden-Newton, CEO of Keep Britain Tidy, said:

We are delighted to be partnering with Defra to deliver the first government backed national anti-litter campaign in a generation. As the largest consumers of food and drink on the go in Europe the need for this campaign has never been greater. We are urgently asking everyone to eliminate litter by keeping their packaging with them when there isn’t a bin and bin it when there is one.

We know the impact that litter has on our environment, on wildlife and, ultimately, our oceans where 80% of the plastics found there come directly from the land.

This campaign will raise awareness with those people who still think it is acceptable to leave their rubbish anywhere other than in a bin.

The message is simple – Keep it. Bin it.

Ana Baptista, Corporate Affairs Director, Mars Wrigley Confectionery UK said:

Mars Wrigley Confectionery is hugely proud to support the national anti-litter campaign, as it builds on our long-standing commitment to tackling this important issue.

We feel strongly that industry has a critical role to play in delivering long-term behaviour change by encouraging people to bin their litter responsibly and we look forward to working with the team at Defra and Keep Britain Tidy to deliver on this goal.

Roger Whiteside, Chief Executive at Greggs, said:

We love that our customers care about the environment, and so do we – that’s why we’re committed to doing all we can to protect it and tackle the growing issue of litter.

Social responsibility forms the bedrock of our business and to this end, we have rigorous targets in place, ensuring we carefully manage any environmental impact from our operations. We are proud of our existing partnerships with a number of environmental charities including Keep Britain Tidy and look forward to working with Defra and other campaign partners to really bolster all of our efforts in this area and make a positive impact together.

Paul Pomroy, Chief Executive of McDonald’s UK said:

As a business we have made a number of moves to help reduce our impact on the environment. These include introducing recycling units in our dining areas, reducing the amount of packaging we use and moving our plastic straws behind the counter, whilst we move to paper straws, which has reduced the number used by almost 10%. Our restaurant teams have also, for over 30 years, carried out daily litter patrols in their local area, collecting all the litter they find.

We are proud to now be supporting the ‘Keep It, Bin It’ campaign. As a father of two boys, I am passionate about the responsibility we have to ensure our communities are clean and our natural environment remains healthy for future generations.

Despite the huge cost of cleaning up litter, a worrying 1 in 5 people admit to dropping litter. A recent study also showed 1 in 4 people admit to ‘careful littering’, such as leaving drinks cans or coffee cups on window ledges.

The government wants to make littering culturally unacceptable within a generation, with the initial focus on 16 to 24 year olds. Evidence suggests this age group is more likely to drop litter.

The campaign follows the first ever Litter Strategy for England, published last year, which sets out how government will work to clean up the country, change attitudes towards littering, and strengthen enforcement powers.

Earlier this year we doubled the maximum on-the-spot penalty for littering, gave councils new powers to tackle littering from vehicles, and have made £450,000 funding available through the Litter Innovation Fund to pilot new ways to tackle littering.

We are keen to hear from commercial and charitable organisations that are interested in joining our campaign. Simply email our partnerships team at Litter@defra.gov.uk to express an interest.

• Businesses that are campaign partners: Mars Wrigley Confectionery, McDonald’s, Greggs, Network Rail, and PepsiCo UK.
• This is one of the first times that government will run a campaign that is almost fully funded by commercial partners.
• As set out in the Litter Strategy, over the course of the next generation, we want to create a culture where it is totally unacceptable to drop litter. To do this, we need to bring down the number of people who litter consciously, and to generate strong and lasting social pressure against littering. Good infrastructure and clear social expectations, supported by proportionate enforcement, will help reinforce social pressure on everyone to do the right thing.
• The campaign will run across England.
• We published the Litter Strategy for England in April 2017, setting out our strategic aim to clean up the country and deliver a substantial reduction in litter and littering within a generation.
• Research on one in five admitting to having dropped litter in the past is from Keep Britain Tidy – Litter Droppers Segmentation research (2010).
• Research on 27% of people admitting to ‘careful littering’ is from a poll by YouGov for Keep Britain Tidy (2018).
• The UK is making great strides to tackle waste, including a highly successful plastic bag charge which has seen 13 billion plastic bags taken out of circulation in the last two years alone, announced plans to extend the plastic bag charge to all retailers, recently launched a consultation on banning the sale of straws, plastic-stemmed cotton buds and stirrers, and will consult on introducing a deposit return scheme for single use drink containers later this year.
• For further information please contact Defra press office on 020 8225 7317 or out of hours on 0345 051 8486.

Calling for MPs to look beyond current divisions and deliver Brexit, he is expected to say:

Now is the time to raise our sights, and acknowledge that there is a world beyond Europe, and a time Beyond Brexit.

The Government has made clear that we want to take a balanced approach to the question of our future trading prospects. We need to maximise our access to the EU market but without damaging our potential to benefit from emerging trade opportunities in other parts of the world.

Even before we get to new trade opportunities afforded by new trade agreements there are still considerable export opportunities for British businesses to exploit in existing markets. We still have ground to make up on our international competitors in many of these countries abroad.

If we want Britain to become a global exporting superpower, we have to unlock our considerable potential.

On Britain’s role in shaping the future of trade, he is expected to say:

A wholesale revolution in the patterns of trade has already arrived. The tectonic plates of global commerce are shifting under our feet. Our future FTAs are hugely important – not least because they are strategic as well as economic tools – but in the long run, it is not what we do unilaterally, or even bilaterally, that will make the biggest difference.

Instead, it is working to update and improve the rules-based international system that governs global trade.

How the multilateral trading environment develops will almost certainly be the most crucial determinant of the degree of trade liberalisation that will occur and consequently the scale of future opportunities.

This is an area in which the UK will play a pivotal role. The world’s fifth-largest economy taking its seat at the WTO, as a powerful and unabashed defender of free trade, will be a key moment for the United Kingdom. It is one of the most important, if seldom mentioned, aspects of Brexit.

In a call to fellow MPs, he is expected to say:

The withdrawal agreement and the political declaration will not please everyone, and we have had some tough choices to make. Choices which many in Parliament, on both sides of the House, are yet to face up to. But the deal we’ve reached will give us a firm and stable base on which to leave the EU and build this country’s global future, a future that still encompasses Europe, of course, but also the wide fast-growing markets beyond, with all the opportunity that entails.

The divisions of the referendum need to be consigned to the past. Now is the time to set aside our differences, and lead our country to a future of freedom, success, and prosperity.

In politics we cannot always have the luxury of doing what we want for ourselves, but we have an abiding duty to do what is right for our country.

On UK exports, he is expected to say:

At the time of the referendum, we were told that just voting to leave the EU would cause such an economic shock that we’d lose half a million jobs, our investors would desert us, and we would require an emergency budget to deal with the ensuing fiscal imbalance.

What’s happened since? We’ve added over 700,000 jobs to the economy, with more people finding work than at any time in the past 40 years.

This upward trajectory shows no signs of slowing. Indeed, the OBR has calculated that we can add another 800,000 jobs without creating inflationary pressure, because there’s still slack in the economy.

In 2017 we saw total UK exports rise by 10.9% compared with 2016.

And what did we sell? We sold almost £50 billion worth of mechanical machinery, £41 billion worth of motor vehicles, £16 billion worth of aircraft and £14 billion worth of medical equipment.

And, as I have to mention on St. Andrews Day, some £4.3 billion of Scotch Whisky.

So much for Britain not making anything anymore.

Patients in South East England will benefit from £12.28 million in new funding to support paramedics to get on the road faster, Matt Hancock confirmed today.

The South East Coast Ambulance Service will benefit from government capital funding, including £6.52 million for Medway, £5.52 million for Brighton and £0.24 million for Worthing.

Speaking on a visit to the Medway Maritime Hospital, the Health and Social Care Secretary announced the additional funding to quickly turn around ambulances so paramedics are more readily available to help patients.

Matt Hancock, Health and Social Care Secretary said:

I’m delighted to give the go-ahead to more state-of-the-art ambulance hubs, which patients in Medway, Worthing and Brighton will soon have up and running in their areas.

Our heroic paramedics represent the frontline of our NHS, and it’s vital they can support patients in need as quickly as possible – that’s why we’re backing patients and paramedics alike in the South East with over £12 million of investment.

The ‘make ready hubs’ allow ambulance trusts to improve turnaround times for their ambulance fleets by using specialist staff and facilities to quickly restock, refuel and clean ambulances, getting them back on the road faster and maximising paramedic time with patients.

Brighton already benefits from a make ready hub, and today the hub will receive an investment of £5.52 million to allow them to expand even further, as well as recruiting more staff to improve the ambulance coverage in the area. Worthing will also have their ambulance station expanded into a central hub for staff thanks to £240,000.

Not only will the funding expand existing services, but it has significant potential to save money in the future through more efficient ways of co-ordinating and preparing ambulance vehicles for their shifts, as they typically spend 12 hours on the road at a time before returning to their hub.

This summer the Department of Health and Social Care also provided £36.3 million to ambulance trusts across the country to better equip services ahead of this winter. This included funding for 256 new state-of-the-art ambulances, which have the flexibility to respond to any incident and treat patients at the scene if necessary.

Together with the new money announced today, this will give ambulance trusts the resources needed to respond to calls more quickly and effectively as part of the government’s commitment to improving services and standards of care for patients and staff.

Daren Mochrie, Chief Executive of South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SECAmb) said:

I welcome this announcement of significant investment, which will allow us to continue to develop our facilities to improve our services across the Medway, Worthing and Brighton areas.

The make ready system has been shown to deliver real benefits for our patients and staff and I am delighted that this funding allows us to continue to roll this out.

Mastercard has committed to enhance career opportunities for veterans.

The payment technology company made the pledge as they became a signatory of the Armed Forces Covenant, which took place at an event in London yesterday.

The Armed Forces Covenant is a promise from the nation to ensure that the military community is treated fairly and not disadvantaged by their service.

As part of their Covenant pledges, Mastercard will also support employees who choose to join the reserves, allowing staff the appropriate leave for reserve training and deployment.

For those employees with spouses or partners in the armed forces, Mastercard will also grant leave before, during and after their deployment.

In 2012, Mastercard launched ‘SALUTE’ – a networking group set up by employees with links to the military. As part of their new commitment to the armed forces, Mastercard will oversee the continued growth of the group, which supports the transition of military and ex-forces personnel into new civilian roles within the organisation.

Minister for Defence People and Veterans Tobias Ellwood said:

Having such a world-renowned organisation like Mastercard as part of the Covenant family shows how businesses across the UK are backing our armed forces.

Mastercard’s commitments today will make a significant difference for veterans looking to take the next step in their career.

The signing took place at Mastercard’s offices in Canary Wharf, and was attended by Defence Minister Earl Howe.

The Armed Forces Covenant, which was established in 2011, now has over 3,000 signatories from a range of public and private sector organisations. Support services provided under the Covenant include education, help starting a new career and facilitating possibilities for reserve service.

Last week the Government published its annual Armed Forces Covenant Report, which sets out the Government’s achievements in fulfilling its duty to ensure that the military community is treated fairly.

Key accomplishments included:

• £23 million of Service Pupil Premium payments made to support 76,000 service children in 10,000 primary and secondary schools across England
• The launch of the Armed Forces Flexible Working Act, enhancing service personnel’s ability to serve part-time, should personal circumstances change
• Plans to launch the Defence Transition Policy shortly, improving the holistic support available to service personnel and their families when leaving the services and returning to civilian life
• Over 3,000 businesses and organisations have now signed the Armed Forces Covenant, pledging to support and empower former and current service personnel and their families
• The launch of the first UK-wide ‘Strategy for our Veterans’, to improve the delivery of support to those who have served

Fire and Rescue Services in England attended around 15,000 flood-related incidents last year, and rescued or evacuated around 1,000 people from flood waters. On average around 170 people a year are rescued from inside or on top of a vehicle surrounded by water. Driving through flood water is the number one cause of death during flooding, with storm selfies and wave watching also recorded as causes of death.

As winter hits, the Environment Agency is encouraging people to protect themselves in a flood by with the ‘Prepare Act Survive’ plan – by checking flood warnings, taking practical actions such as moving valuable possessions to safety, and not taking dangerous risks.

In September, dramatic footage was posted online of a woman trapped in her car on a flooded road in Yorkshire. In a heroic rescue, a passer-by was able to smash her car window and pull her from the vehicle to safety moments before the car became submerged.

But it’s not only drivers that could be at risk as a result of more extreme weather. Serah Cullinan-Stooks’ family home was flooded in West Yorkshire during the Boxing Day floods in 2015, it took a year to repair the damage that was done to the family’s Georgian house with floodwaters having risen to nine feet into their home.

The mother-of-three said:

Until it has happened to you, no one can have any idea of the destruction an event like that can cause or the huge impact on your life. It was really tough on our children, they were very distressed by it all.

This week, the government published new climate change projections which show that sea levels are set to rise over this century and more frequent, extreme weather requires urgent action. This means that knowing your flood risk and understanding what action to take in a flood is more important than ever.

Sir James Bevan, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency, said:

Knowing what to do in a flood could save your life and keep the people that you care about safe. Taking some simple steps to prepare in advance could prevent thousands of pounds of damage to your home and your possessions.

We urge people, wherever they live, to look at the Prepare Act Survive plan and find out how to how to protect themselves and their homes.

Dawn Whittaker, NFCC Water Safety and Drowning Prevention Lead said:

Unfortunately fire and rescue services are often called to incidents where people have just underestimated the risks posed by flood water.

Floods can quickly turn into life-threatening situations so NFCC ask that people listen to advice and avoid entering flood water whether on foot or in a vehicle.

The Environment Agency is spending more than £2.6billion to build flood schemes around the country which will better protect 300,000 homes by 2021. This winter, the EA is prepared to take action wherever it is needed, with an arsenal of kit which includes 40km of flood barriers and 250 high volume pumps which are ready to be moved to communities that need them in a flood whilst also working more closely with partners such as the Fire & Rescue Service.

To find out more about what to do in a flood visit what to do in a flood on Gov.uk.