Fly-tippers 'trashing' motorways

An estimated 700,000 bags are dumped across the UK's motorways

The M25 is being swamped with rubbish owing to litter and fly-tipping.

Figures released by the Conservatives show that roughly 50,000 bin bags worth of rubbish is cleaned up from London's main motorway each year.

There have been 90 reported incidences of fly-tipping on the M25 this year - up from a total of 48 in 2007.

Shadow environment secretary Peter Ainsworth called the latest figures depressing and said the country was "groaning" under litter.

"A small number of people are trashing our environment, using public spaces like rubbish bins and chucking litter without any care for where it ends up," Mr Ainsworth said.

UK-wide, it is estimated that 700,000 bin bags worth of litter have been dumped on motorways over the last few years.

The Highways Agency could not provide figures for overall clean-up costs, but did say that for motorways in the West Midlands alone, the annual bill is £167,000.

Earlier this year best-selling US author Bill Bryson, who lives in Norfolk, was named as the head of a new campaign to stop littering.