Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment she has made of the (a) environmental effect and (b) cost to the public purse of littering and fly tipping on (i) beaches, (ii) marine life, (iii) farms and (iv) urban areas.

We have made no specific assessment of the environmental effects of litter and fly-tipping, nor of the costs of clearing litter and fly-tipped waste in these areas. Data on local government spending, including on street cleansing (which includes tackling litter and fly-tipping) can be found at:

www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-revenue-expenditure-and-financing .

The cost of litter clearance is not recorded separately: the figures reported for spending on street cleansing also include spending on clearing fly-tipped waste, and on activities which would be required even if all litter was disposed of appropriately (such as sweeping up fallen leaves, or emptying public bins). We estimate the annual cost to local government of clearing litter in England runs to hundreds of millions of pounds.

The UK Marine Strategy Part One, published in 2012, presented an initial assessment of the state of UK seas. An updated assessment of the state of our seas is currently being prepared. Defra conducts monitoring of litter on beaches, in the water column and on the seafloor. We consider that the best way to address both the environmental and economic impact is to prevent litter entering the marine environment in the first place. The UK Marine Strategy Part Three, published in 2015, sets out a comprehensive set of actions we are taking to address litter in the marine environment.

Data on fly-tipping for England is published at:

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fly-tipping-in-england.

This includes information on the cost to local authorities of clearing fly-tipped waste and of taking enforcement actions against fly-tipping.