4. How is the Welsh Government ensuring a reduction in littering and fly-tipping in South Wales Central? OQ59255

Duty bodies, including local authorities, have responsibility for managing litter and fly-tipping in their respective areas. Welsh Government currently funds Keep Wales Tidy and Fly-tipping Action Wales to support improvements in local environmental quality across Wales. This includes partner activities, enforcement work and the promotion of behaviour change.

Thank you, Minister. As you'll be aware, there is a major issue with regard to litter and fly-tipping, and we're all aware of the damaging effect that this can have, not just on the beauty of our communities, but in terms of nature and wildlife. We all, of course, have a part to play, and I'd like to thank the thousands of people across the nation who regularly litter pick in their communities as volunteers, in all weathers, and they play their part as conscientious citizens by so doing.

But there are some areas that are too dangerous to allow volunteers to collect litter there, such as busy roadsides and railways, yet there's a major problem with litter in many of these areas. I receive regular complaints about litter from people who catch trains from the Valleys to Cardiff, and roads users in my region, who mention the A470, the M4 and the A4232 as examples. When can we expect the publication of the final version of the Government's plan to tackle litter and fly-tipping, and how will this plan remedy the situation?

Diolch, Heledd. I share your concern. I've actually, before I had your question in fact, raised with my own officials my own perception that the amount of litter along particular roads and train lines has increased in recent years, and I think there are a number of reasons for this, which we are looking at. So, I am very keen to strengthen the ability of local authorities to take action there, both, actually, retrospective action to pick the litter up, but actually some behaviour change and education programmes for people to understand the real impact of throwing a bottle out of your car window or whatever it is. There also is an issue with the way that some waste contractors pick up skips without the correct netting on the top and so on, and blow-off from that. So, I'd already independently—and I'm more than happy to renew that—asked for a review of how that system works, how we fund it, and what the relevant duties are. We have the responsibility for some of the trunk road network, but we delegate that to local authorities, and I've asked for a review of that as well.

So, I share your concern, and I'd already started the process, but I'm very happy to invigorate it again, of looking to see what else we can do. But I do think there is a big behaviour change issue here. People really do need to understand what happens when they litter, what happens to the plastic that they leave on the side of the road. It's not just that one bottle, and what happens as that leaches into the environment on a longer term basis. So, as I've said, we've been working with Jeremy Miles, with the Eco-Schools initiative, to really drive home to people the effect of their individual behaviour, and a lot of this will be as a societal push, won't it, to making such behaviour just completely unacceptable.

I couldn't concur more with the sentiments expressed by you and the previous questioner about the amount of litter that's available to be witnessed on highways and railways, especially in South Wales Central. On the link road coming off Culverhouse Cross, there's a bed on the side of the road there that's been there for three weeks. There are also about 12 black bin bags in the nearest lay-by there, which have been there for at least 10 days. In the Vale of Glamorgan, at the Aubrey Arms pub, there's a load of black bin bags just on the kerb there, just left. I appreciate this isn't the Government's fault; I always try my best to blame the Government for most things, but in fairness, this isn't the Government's fault. It is a societal issue.

Education is one of the planks that we can use. Can you confirm whether local authorities have come through with ideas, with suggestions to your good self as Minister, to enable them to take people who do dump rubbish in our countryside, along our roadways and our railways—? Because the examples I just gave you, that is commercial dumping. That's not just the bottle going out of the window, which is repugnant in itself; that's someone consciously dumping a piece of either commercial waste or general household waste that amounts to a lot in an area that should be pristine, clean, and able to sell our great capital city of Cardiff, and, indeed, the great countryside of the Vale of Glamorgan.

Absolutely, Andrew. Obviously, it is a matter for the local authority, and I hope you've reported it to them. I actually have myself raised the slip road, as it's called, with Cardiff Council, in a recent meeting with the leader. We are doing a number of things. We've got Fly-tipping Action Wales, for example, working in partnership at the moment with Rhondda Cynon Taf to catch fly-tippers, using surveillance on Natural Resources Wales-managed land, and Keep Wales Tidy, through the Welsh Government-funded Caru Cymru project, works with local environment groups and the police to target litter hotspots caused by anti-social behaviour, and then to prosecute the people responsible. 

I'm very keen to highlight the prosecutions, because I think there is a deterrent effect of that. If you open the black bags, we can often find those responsible, and trace it back through the litter. We've been encouraging local authorities to do that; we have an action plan to do that. As I say, we're doing the behaviour change thing. That behaviour change goes for businesses as well. It's not just the people who tip it, is it, it's the business who actually asked for their rubbish to be disposed of in that manner. So, there are behaviour change programmes for commercial waste and businesses as well. 

That will ramp up as we bring in the new recycling targets for businesses and so on, because this is valuable recyclate; it's not just litter. This is valuable material that we can use as part of our circular economy effort, because we're beginning to attract really serious reprocessors here to Wales, because of the high-value recyclate we have. That material is, to my mind, not just unsightly litter; it's actually wasted raw material that can be used. We need to get that attitude out there into the public, but we also need to prosecute those people who do the things that you've just mentioned, because I couldn't agree more—it's both unsightly and environmentally hazardous, and we need to get that point across.