31 tonnes of rubbish collected from just two stretches of road

"This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle..." Even filthy London streets couldn't put Shakespeare off his stride, but were the bard to be catapulted to 2023 and find himself wandering along the side of the M25, or any major UK road, would he describe this country in similar terms?
Probably not. Our litter-strewn verges are a disgrace, but even worse is the fact that, save for a few hardy members of the public with plastic bags and nerves of steel, no one does much about it. Actually, that's not entirely true. My local litter group's Facebook page carries a couple of pop-ups from the council proclaiming how its highways squads were in action over five days on the A3 and A331, when they gathered 1000kg of litter and 17,360kg of debris. That was in February. A month later they were out again on the A3 alone and harvested 1460kg of litter and 11,060kg of debris.
There are no national figures for the quantity of roadside litter and rubbish, although a report by the Council for the Protection of Rural England in 2020 estimated that clearing it up costs taxpayers around £850 million a year. According to National Highways, which is responsible for motorways, much of the rubbish its teams have to deal with is food packaging, but fly-tipping of household and construction rubbish is a growing problem, as are carelessly tied-down skiploads that release those endless, grey plastic streamers you see in hedges.
Esta historia es de la edición May 10, 2023 de Autocar UK.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición May 10, 2023 de Autocar UK.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar

NISSAN LEAF
Original mainstream EV transforms into a family crossover for third era

Steve Cropley
Can there be a car more beguiling for value and versatility than the Dacia Jogger? I say no.

Outside influence
General Motors is all but absent from the European car market, yet it recently opened a new car design studio in the UK.

CUPRA TERRAMAR
Cupra injects some Latin flair into the bloated family SUV class

Loch and load
These epic new Aston and Ferrari V12s have brought a famous old rivalry back to the boil. RICHARD LANE goes all guns blazing north of the border

NISSAN MICRA
Can the magic of the Renault 5 also help spark a renaissance at Nissan?

THE ANTI-AGEING FAMILY SUV
Mk2 XC60 arrived in 2017 but only one thing betrays its age: its used price

BYD DOLPHIN SURF
Cheap yet fully equipped Dacia Spring rival arrives with 154bhp, 193 miles

Matt Prior
You might have heard that Caterham has found a new engine supplier in Horse (decent name, I think), a joint venture between Renault and Geely.

YOUR VIEWS
I finalised my purchase of a new Suzuki Swift Motion this week and had an interesting chat with the car salesman.