This soft line is rubbish. It’s time to get tough and clean up our act

Michael Gove is on the comeback trail. Back in government, he last week reclaimed British waters for fishing. But if he really wants to boost his popularity ratings there is one environmental issue that voters care about more than any other: litter.

Millions care about the scourges of rubbish and fly-tipping, and with good reason. A filthy country is a sign of a breakdown in community pride and wider respect. It’s bad for the national psyche and its direct and indirect costs run into the billions. Local councils alone spend £1 billion every year on cleaning it up; a scandalous waste of money when social care and community services are being cut.

Littering might seem like a small offence, but across Europe illegal dumping of waste has become organised crime’s second biggest money spinner after drugs. Meanwhile, in this country this week The Daily Telegraph reported a ridiculous situation where travellers occupying a park in Basildon, Essex, started charging residents £30 to leave their waste. This is anti-social, illegal, and must be severely punished. Many conservatives did not vote for the party so that it could be soft on such crime.

Sadly, however, the Government’s new antilitter strategy is fundamentally flawed. The stated intention to launch a national campaign to change the rampant culture of littering is positive, but as someone who sits on the government’s Litter Advisory Group, I know there is no money to pay for it. Two things need to change.

First, a sustained national campaign – costing more than £50million over 10 years – needs to be funded by the introduction of a legally binding extended producer responsibility (EPR) scheme, as exists in many other European countries. This will see the manufacturers of heavily littered products, for example producers of drink cans and fast-food wrapping take some financial responsibility for the environmental damage that their products cause when carelessly tossed away.

The “polluter pays” principle, long-established in Whitehall, needs to be invoked. As good corporate citizens, major companies have every incentive not to see their brands lying discarded with such depressing regularity by the road. For them, supporting a national campaign is good business sense.

Secondly, various organs of state are guilty of a considerable dereliction of public duty. The Department of Transport quango, Highways England, is responsible for the motorways and trunk roads in England. It has a statutory legal duty to keep its land clean. It’s obvious to any driver that it is failing spectacularly and, in the process, breaking the law every day. Yet they continue with impunity. This is a form of state-tolerated lawbreaking. The Government should turn a blind eye to it no longer.

One of the biggest sources of litter on verges is from bulk waste transporters. The Environment Agency used to prosecute the operators of waste transport vehicles who allow rubbish to escape but it no longer does so.

Is it just not willing or is it unable to enforce the law?

Without such action, we will all continue to inhabit a filthy environment.

Mr Gove, your appallingly littered country needs you – and your party needs the votes.