Call for privatization of cigarette-butt clean-up costs

UK MPs want tobacco companies, takeaway restaurants and chewing-gum manufacturers to spend hundreds of millions of pounds to clean up the mess created when their products and packaging are carelessly discarded, according to a story by Mark Leftly for The Independent.

They are said to be furious that managing litter in England alone costs the state £1 billion a year, much of it in council tax, at a time when the government is trying to balance the country’s precarious finances.

The most frequently littered items are cigarette butts – six billion are said to be discarded every year in London’s Square Mile financial district – and chewing gum, which is particularly costly to remove and accounts for around a quarter of all litter. Nearly three percent is fast-food related.

Leading figures from the Wrigley Company, the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association, and McDonald’s are due to face the House of Commons’ Communities and Local Government Committee this week.

MPs are considering whether it would be effective to impose litter taxes on companies that produce products frequently discarded on Britain’s streets.
Committee chairman Clive Betts said the taxpayer should not be expected to bear the full cost. He said it was too soon to judge what financial burden could be transferred to the private sector, but a committee source said these businesses could “absolutely” end up footing a significant part of the current £1 billion clean-up costs.

Keep Britain Tidy has estimated that indirect costs, such as the impact on health, property values, and crime, cost the economy an additional £3 billion annually.

Follow the story here.