Meet the army of volunteers leading the fightback against Britain's 'flytipping epidemic'

Researchers at Keep Britain Tidy also found that 77 per cent of people believe the country's litter problem has worsened in recent years.

And as the rubbish continues to pile up, thousands of determined Britons have decided to take matters into their own hands.

With gloves on their hands and litter pickers and rubbish bags in their arms, volunteers give up hours of their time each week to try and clean up their communities.

Among them is Cathy Swift, who leads the litter picking group, Lager Can, in the London borough of Ealing.

The group's more than 2,000 members collect rubbish every day with the aim of making their community "cleaner and greener".

Ms Swift told GB News: "What unites the people in our group is that they care about the environment, they hate rubbish and they are willing to do something about it.

"Most people don’t like rubbish, but the vast majority aren't really willing to do something about it.

"It is having that sort of can-do attitude and knowing you can actually achieve something really positive that keeps our members motivated."

The retired commercial analyst said the group feels as though it is "making a real difference" in the borough.

However, she said one problem it encounters is rubbish produced from overcrowded Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs).

"There are some parts of our borough where there is a lot of overcrowded housing and deprivation, and some overcrowded housing is illegally overcrowded, the 72-year-old said.

"If a house has been turned into an HMO illegally and the house isn’t provided with enough bins, and those residents have literally got nowhere to put their rubbish.

"A lot of that domestic flytipping is simply because it’s an extension of deprivation.

"All over the UK we have rogue landlords who are running these types of accommodations and every time they get a new tenant, they are dumping the stuff from the old tenant in a lay-by.

"Where you have areas with a fast turnover of residents, it’s a real problem - it is how they get rid of the waste, they just dump it where no one is looking."

Nearby, fellow Ealing resident David Posnett heads up the 6,000-strong Friends of the Grand Union Canal group.

The litter pickers operate along the entirety of the canal, which links London to Birmingham.

Mr Posnett said when the group was set up during the Covid pandemic in 2020, volunteers were filling "hundreds of bags" with rubbish.

"Our goal is the reduction of litter - not just because we are picking it up, but because of making people aware that it doesn't just vanish," he told GB News

"There is still the perception that the canal is something to do with the council, so people assume their taxes should be spent on clearing it up, and obviously that is wrong.

"The parts that we do look after, when we started back in lockdown, we had hundreds of bags of stuff. Going forward now, along my two or three-mile stretch, there have been two or three bags of rubbish around once a week, so we have actually reduced."

Mr Posnett said one of the strangest things he has encountered while litter picking was an environmental-themed play game mat - which the group kept and now uses for fun.

The software engineer believes handing out fines to litterers could be a solution to the problem.

This is also the view shared by John Read, founder of the national campaign group, Clean Up Britain, who believes anyone caught littering should be handed a minimum fine of £1,000.

Mr Read said he has "never seen a country as filthy as Britain", calling the country "embarrassing".

"I would go as far as to say it is a litter and flytipping epidemic, that we are the most filthy country in the Western world," he told GB News.

"I have been to all of the Western countries, and I have never seen a country as filthy as Britain.

"There is just litter everywhere in Britain, and it is only when you point it out to people that they open their eyes and see it.

"Our standards are so low in Britain that we don't even notice it, and that is a sad thing to say but we have sunk to a very low level.

"It takes people from overseas to point it out and say 'God your country is filthy'. It is very embarrassing, it is shameful, it is sad and depressing."

While Mr Read acknowledged litter picking was an "admirable" and "socially responsible" thing to do, he does not believe it to be the solution to the problem.

He said: "It is only dealing with the symptoms of the problem, it is a bit like mopping up the kitchen floor while the taps are still running - you will be doing it forever."

The campaign group, set up in 2010, instead believes the answer is a behavioural change.

Mr Read feels tougher fines and car registration plates printed on fast food wrappers could help act as deterrents.

He told the People's Channel: "There has got to be some level of jeopardy - people have got to feel there is a real chance of getting caught.

"We need politicians to step up and stop being so gutless and start implementing these things and that is what our campaign is all about.

"We just want to clean up Britain because it is absolutely filthy - it's rancid."