The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has launched new data on the types and sizes of drinks containers littered in England, UK, to help influence the design of the country's deposit return system.
The data were published 20 Nov, following a series of "green clean" events held across England throughout September to collect littered drinks containers.
While plastic packaging has been making the headlines, the CPRE data showed that two-thirds of all drinks containers littered were made from other materials.
According to the data, from the 11,212 drinks containers collected, over a third (35%) of the littered drinks containers were plastic, 50% aluminium, 14% glass and 1% Tetra Pak.
Of the plastic containers, 10% were small bottles below 500ml, 71% were medium sized bottles, i.e. an average 500ml-bottle, 10% were large and 9% were extra-large bottles.
The campaigned published the data ahead of the government-proposed deposit return system and in anticipation of what it described as attempts by the packaging industry to “dilute the system and limit the type and size of containers it accepts.”
“This data demonstrates that there is no limit to the types and sizes of cans and bottles that are causing harm to our wildlife and natural world, and therefore England's deposit system must be set up to include every single type of container,” the organisation concluded.