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Campaigners share fury as litter and pee-filled bottles left at White Cliffs of Dover

By: Chantal Weller cweller@thekmgroup.co.uk

Published: 11:43, 28 February 2023

Updated: 14:59, 02 March 2023

Campaigners have expressed their fury after finding endless litter at an iconic beauty spot - including bottles filled with wee.

A video shows a grass bank next to the coastbound carriageway of the A20 near the White Cliffs of Dover covered in discarded waste, with tissues, fast food containers and carrier bags dumped in a long line.

Among the rubbish is plastic bottles containing what is understood to be urine.

The shocking video was shared by Clean up Britain, a campaign group fighting to end littering and fly tipping.

In a tweet, the group said: "How many bottles of urine can you count?

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"This was filmed in Dover. The White Cliffs are now being replaced by the orange plastics!"

Other users of the social media site responded to the message with disgust.

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Clean up Britain on Twitter captured a video of huge amounts of litter in Dover. Picture: Clean up Britain on Twitter

"Absolutely disgusting… welcome to Great Britain," Katie wrote.

"Remember when during the pandemic, everyone was up in arms about plastic pollution for about 10 minutes? What a filthy place… I feel ashamed," Herr Richter commented.

A mocked up image showing the landmark covered in unsightly litter and rubbish was released last year as part of a campaign to highlight the rise of fly-tipping.

It was released after data from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs showed fly-tipping had increased by 16% over the previous year - with just under two-thirds of incidents involving household waste.

The campaign group says "the White Cliffs are now being replaced by the orange plastics"

And in June 2020, site owners National Trust warned people not to bring barbecues or to light campfires while out in the countryside or by the coast, following a spate of wildfires during lockdown.

A spokesperson for the National Trust says their team at the White Cliffs did a full check following the litter video, and have confirmed that the site in the video is the coastbound carriageway of the A20, managed by National Highways. "The National Trust doesn’t own any land bordering it and have no responsibility to manage or maintain it," a spokesperson said.

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A National Highways spokesperson said: "Millions of people travel on our network every day and despite our best efforts to keep roads clean, they can quickly become littered with rubbish from vehicles and unsecured loads.

"Responsibility for litter picking on the A20 sits with the local authority, and it would require new legislation to change this. However, we do work closely with councils to ensure litter picking is better coordinated with other highway maintenance works and help them best utilise any traffic management we have in place which allows them to work safely on our roads.

"The litter on our roads can cause a hazard to drivers, our workers and wildlife. If people didn't drop litter from their vehicles in the first place, it wouldn't need to be picked up.

"We're urging people to think twice before tossing it out of their car windows and take it home instead."

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