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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the (a) ten types of item most commonly discarded as litter and (b) ten areas in which littering and fly-tipping are most prevalent in England.

Assessments of the composition of litter vary, depending on the methodology used to sample sites and to categorise the litter found there. The Local Environmental Quality Survey of England (LEQSE) was carried out by Keep Britain Tidy on behalf of Defra from 2001-2015. It provided information on the overall cleanliness of the country by looking at indicators of local environmental quality including littering, graffiti and fly-posting. This survey assesses the prevalence of types of litter but does not count the number of items of each type that were found.

The 2014/15 survey found that the top ten types of litter found on the highest percentage of sites were:

1. Smokers’ materials
2. Confectionery packs
3. Non-alcoholic drinks-related
4. Fast-food related
5. Snack packs (packaging associated with pre-prepared snack food)
6. Other packaging
7. Alcoholic drinks-related
8. Paper tissues
9. Vehicle parts
10. Discarded food/drink

We have made no specific assessment of the areas in which littering is most prevalent. The 2013/14 LEQSE report includes some assessment of regional variations in local environmental quality, although the differences found between regions were not statistically significant. The LEQSE reports for 2013/14 and 2014/15 can be found online at: http://www.keepbritaintidy.org/leqse/1611

Data on fly-tipping for England is published at: https://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 action against fly-tipping. The 2015/16 fly tipping data for England is expected to be published in March. The actual publication date will be confirmed shortly and will be available via the ONS website: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics.