Tackling the problem of littering in Portsmouth
Litter is a problem that affects all cities, especially Portsmouth as it’s the most densely populated city outside of London.
In May this year, The News Portsmouth reported over nine tonnes of litter was collected from Southsea Common in one weekend.
In an attempt to clean up the city, the council was forced to impose the threat of fines for people caught littering.
The fixed penalty for littering is £75; however, if prosecuted, the charge could be up to £2,500.
The most common sources of litter are plastic cups, cigarette butts, cans and bottles.
As shown in the infographic below, these items could take years to decompose.
Plastic cups have the potential to take up to 1000 years to decompose and cigarette butts could take 10 to 12 years.
According to gov.uk, there were nearly 1200 reported incidents of litter just on their app in 2016, but only 30% of people perceive litter to be a problem.
In the same year, it cost local authorities £682m to keep the streets clean — a figure that could be drastically reduced if the problem of littering was tackled.
