| Don’t tip on your trip | ||
With enough litter to completely fill two public swimming pools (620 tonnes) collected from the motorways of south west Scotland every single year, Transport Scotland’s operating company Amey and Keep Scotland Beautiful are telling motorists ‘Don’t tip on your trip’. National motorway litter week kicks off today, Monday 18 August, and Amey, supported by the RAC, Transport Scotland and Keep Scotland Beautiful, aim to drive home the message that motorists must take their litter home. Every week over 13 tonnes of litter is callously thrown from vehicles and then gathered by Amey’s dedicated litter picking squads from stretches of the M8, M73, M74, M80 and M77 motorways. Their haul would easily fill at least 12 family sized cars. Willie Watson, Amey’s unit manager for south west Scotland explains: "Litter is a real issue across the network but motorway slip roads often bear the brunt as drivers slow up and toss their fast food wrappers, crisp packets, apple cores and juice bottles from their cars. With the volume of vehicles on the network every day the quantities quickly stack up." Chief Executive of Keep Scotland Beautiful, John Summers OBE, said, "Carelessly throwing your litter from a car window is an illegal activity and many areas of Scotland now issue £50 Fixed Penalty Fines directly to drivers caught in the act. But not only is it unacceptable to deposit your waste on the roadside, it also spoils Scotland’s beautiful countryside, affects tourism and costs millions to clear up. The most annoying thing about road litter is that it is wholly preventable – all motorists have to do is take their litter home, or use a bin."  RAC Litter Press Fact Sheet (27kb, pdf) RAC Litter Press Release (31kb, pdf)
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