The UK Spends £1 Billion a Year Removing Graffiti from Buildings (US $15 Billion) – Why Don’t We Blame the Buildings?

Posted on 09 Jun 2025

The Environmental Cost of Graffiti

Researchers in Spain estimated that 16,000 liters of paint and 40,000 cans of hazardous toxic waste are used each year, just to create the graffiti on their railways (RENFE Report 2025). Whilst as long ago as 2008, the US Environmental Protection Agency estimated that 4,842 tons of volatile organic emissions were released each year due to graffiti at an estimated cost of $15 - $18 billion for cleaning.

It is impossible to calculate the worldwide environmental or financial cost of graffiti, yet interestingly, no one blames the buildings, the builders, the building’s owners, or demand we should produce fewer buildings in order to reduce graffiti!!

We recognize that the polluters are the problem, stop them and pollution disappears.

Contrast this with the Worldwide Attitude to Plastic Pollution

Greenpeace – (Quote) Plastic is polluting every corner of our planet – Fighting Plastic Pollution (Report 2024). Helen McArthur Foundation (Quote) Trying to stop the flow of plastic pollution into our oceans is impossible – The Solution to Plastic Pollution (Report 2024).

Plastic Pollution Coalition (Quote) Plastic Kills! Plastic Pollution is an environmental, wildlife, climate, human health and social justice issue (Report 2024).

WRAP (Quote) Reducing food waste and plastic pollution are two of the biggest environmental challenges of our lifetime (April 2022).

There are many more of these anti-plastic organizations relentless in their condemnation of ‘Plastic Pollution’, however, none mention the polluters! Nor do they ever produce any evidence that plastic causes pollution. They make no references to countries such as UAE, Japan, Singapore, Sweden where education, good waste collection and effective law enforcement minimize ‘pollution’, plastic or otherwise.

They fail to criticize countries such as the UK and US which encourage waste exports for dumping, or those Asian countries who are responsible for over 80% of plastic waste in our oceans.

Whilst these anti-plastics are non-profit making organizations, they all employ hundreds of people with top executives or lucrative salaries. Therefore, they all need ongoing subscriptions to survive (WRAP are government funded) and plastic pollution campaigns are a great recruiter of new subscribers (Dr Patrick Moore) Ex Greenpeace, which has 3,400 employees!!

The Polluters

Litter: - There were over 1.1million incidents of fly tipping waste in 2022 in the UK. Less than 10% were prosecuted. In 2020, the majority (56%) of Local Authorities issued less than 1 fine per week.

Dumping at Sea: - The statistics here are confusing. It is generally agreed that fishing gear is the biggest contributor to ocean plastics. Next come either China, or the Philippines, Indonesia, India, etc. What is factual is that these Asian countries contribute over 85% of plastic in our oceans with South America, Africa and the Caribbean contributions most of the rest. The USA is estimated at circa 2%, with the whole of Europe 1%. The often repeated ‘fact’ of 12 MTPA plastic waste dumped in the world’s oceans is a fantasy figure with no credible research to support it.

However, 180 million tons of toxic chemicals are estimated to be dumped into our oceans each year.  

The Solutions to Plastic Pollution

• We should stop blaming the plastic, the pollution is the symptom, the polluters are the disease.
• We should copy those countries which educate their young against pollution and penalise heavily that that does occur.
• We should ban all waste exports over 3-4 years and give tax incentives for capital investment in waste treatment plants.
• We should expose the anti-plastic organizations as being self-serving in blaming the pollution whilst ignoring the polluters.
• We should have clear packaging delineation HDPE/PE/PP could be collected recycled together with PET collected separately for recycling. This would enable over 80% to be collected separately for recycling and re-design the rest.

In Summary

1) The reason we don’t see £5 - £10 and £20 plastic notes in our streets is that we value their use and reuse.

2) All plastics could be made recyclable and reusable.

3) Blaming the plastic, the plastic manufacturers, the plastics convertors, and the plastic retailers for pollution is illogical and counterproductive. Like blaming buildings for graffiti.

Finally,

The growth in the use of plastic packaging worldwide will continue. It is necessary to preserve our food and minimize greenhouse gas emissions. Single use plastics are a myth. Single use petrol, diesel, aero fuel, and oil for power are used without a second thought. All plastics can be recovered and recycled and if necessary, incinerated when used for energy. Blaming the material for our negligence is just illogical.

Cheers.

As ever, I welcome your views on any of the items raised and welcome you to join me on LinkedIn for more regular updates.

Twigg Times