Scotland’s roadsides are dirtiest they have ever been

Vast amounts of litter are discarded by motorists even in the most scenic places, writes Derek Robertson

Last week saw a breakthrough in the fight against roadside litter. The Scottish Government announced that they will be bringing forward legislation that will make it easier to catch the people who chuck rubbish from vehicles. This is a pivotal moment and a proposal that Keep Scotland Beautiful is delighted to endorse.

Our research shows that Scotland’s roadsides are the dirtiest they ever have been with local authorities alone clearing 50 tonnes of waste from our roadsides every month. This is both dangerous to workers and costly – it’s public money that we would all much rather seen spent on other services like hospitals and schools.

Not only that, over nine in ten of us think that litter on our roadsides creates a negative impression of Scotland, meaning it is a threat to our tourism.

Just last week a collaborative clean-up of the A82 in Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park collected an astounding 124 bags of rubbish over two days from the side of one of Scotland’s most scenic tourist routes.

Too often, drivers and passengers are throwing their litter out of their car windows – out of sight, out of mind, something they don’t want discarded for someone else to clear up. According to our surveys, 83 per cent of motorways and A-roads are littered.

There is no doubt our on-the-go lifestyles are not helping with 54 per cent of litter on our roads coming from people eating and drinking on the move. With our roadsides quickly becoming some of the dirtiest in Europe, something had to change. So it’s no surprise that the Scottish Government has moved to take action. This proposed change

in legislation is long overdue and is a very welcome development. Since 2016, we have been highlighting the scale and impact of the problem and calling for this legislative change through our Anti-roadside Litter Campaign.

Why is the proposed change in law so significant? Although littering from vehicles is already a criminal offence, it is difficult to enforce as it requires the person who dropped the offending item from the vehicle to be caught in the act, and the person doing that isn’t necessarily the registered keeper. The proposed new legislation will hold the registered keeper of the vehicle responsible for whoever dropped the litter (passenger or driver), making it easier to enforce prosecution.

It is recognition that our politicians can do more to ensure the law works better to tackle this environmental crime and would suggest that traffic cameras and video evidence should be used to hold the registered keeper responsible for littering from their vehicle. Whilst the detail of the Scottish Government’s announcement is still to unfold, we believe the registered keeper change has the potential to be transformative.

In this age of smartphones and dashcams, it will be easier to identify the culprits. This increases the potential for everyone to act with more caution and consideration and encourages people to think twice about what they do with their rubbish.

With our research showing that more than half of adults in Scotland have seen someone throw litter from a vehicle and not pick it up, we believe the refreshed legislation will act as a deterrent and lead to a change in littering behaviour.

Our Anti-roadside Litter Campaign has allowed us to give promi