Brentwood Borough Council has joined with other Essex Local authorities and fast food businesses to continue the battle against litter.

This year, more than 300 local businesses across Essex, Suffolk and Kent are actively taking the lead to work in partnership with their local and county authorities, and major brands and organisations including Britvic, Chelmsford Star Co-operative, Coca-Cola, Costa Coffee, Domino’s, Essex County Council, Helping Hands, Highways England, Keep Britain Tidy, KFC, McDonald’s, RP2 Global, Smith Anderson, Tesco and Wrigley’s.

They are all joining forces with the same objectives: to combat litter and put pressure on offenders to change their anti-social behaviour.

With local authority budgets depleting every year, the demand and pressure on services such as street cleaning rises.

The ultimate victory would be to eradicate the littering bad habit, however as the trend in ‘eating-on-the-go’ continues to grow, so does the battle against litter.

Local authority partnership the Cleaner Essex Group is determined to tackle the problem and knows that the joined-up approach has been tried, tested, and most crucially has brought results.

This year’s campaign reminds people to bin their litter responsibly.

Following the success of the Essex-wide 2014 ‘Littering… it’s not pretty’ campaign, the partnership is growing in size and strength, with partners campaigning together under the banners of Love Essex, Love Suffolk and Love Kent.

From August 24 until the end of September, councils, businesses, volunteers, schools, community groups and enforcement teams will all be doing their bit to encourage litterers to change their illegal behaviour.

Posters and fast food packaging will carry messages to different target audiences, to show that binning your litter is smart, classy, cool, and above all a pretty easy thing to do too.

“Keeping Essex clean and tidy costs £17million a year,” says Councillor Chris Hossack, Chair of the Environment & Housing Management Committee at Brentwood Borough Council, “and Essex residents are paying for it.

"There will always be a cost to street cleansing and to empty litter bins, but money could be saved if everyone did the right thing with their litter.

"That money saved money could then be spent on other things that are important to our residents.”

“In the Brentwood Borough alone, £480,000 of taxpayers’ money is spent on keeping our area clean and tidy and that includes the cost of clearing up fly tips.

"This is too high a price for the majority to pay when it’s the minority who spoil it.

"Binning your litter is a pretty quick thing to do and makes our local environment a better place for everyone.”

As more retail giants join the incumbent force to take a stance against littering, Cherry Lewis-Taylor, McDonald’s franchisee, said: “As a local businesswoman I’m really proud to be supporting the second Love Essex litter campaign and am confident that it will build on the success that we achieved last year.

"I’m passionate about protecting the environment and employ several full time members of staff who carry out at least three litter patrols every day of the year.

"I see the negative effect litter has on the local area, first-hand, so I am delighted that the Love Essex, Kent and Suffolk campaign is bringing together every single McDonald’s across the three counties, individuals, and even more local businesses to raise awareness of the issue.”

Allison Ogden-Newton, recently appointed Chief Executive of environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy, said: “It is fantastic to see the Love Essex campaign going from strength to strength and the model being adopted by other counties.

"Campaigns like this, which see local authorities, charities, businesses and communities working together, are the best way to tackle the problem of litter that blights our streets, parks and beaches.”