CALLS are growing for the Welsh Government to introduce a national litter strategy, with AMs and local authorities backing the idea.

Earlier this month the South Wales Argus revealed that Monmouthshire would be the first council in Wales to implement a publicly available litter strategy.

Currently, unlike in England and Scotland, there is no national litter strategy in Wales.

But now, Conservative South East Wales AM Mohammad Asghar and Newport East Labour AM John Griffiths have backed calls for one to be put into place.

Mr Griffiths said he thought litter was “a major problem” and “entirely preventable.”

He added: “Our cities, towns, countryside and coast are blighted by people dropping litter seemingly without thought or care for our environment and quality of life. It would cost nothing for people to put their litter in bins or take it home to recycle or bin.

“Community clean ups, local authority staff and Keep Wales Tidy do sterling work but the problems persist. We need to strengthen efforts to give our school children the right attitudes and change the mindsets of adults.

READ MORE: Monmouthshire wants to have Wales' first public litter strategy

“The more we do to generally improve our local environments with green space and quality buildings the more they will be valued and the less likely people will feel free to drop litter.

“We should look to develop a Wales wide strategy to make our country a cleaner, tidier, better place to live.”

Mr Asghar said a litter strategy for Wales should be combined with an anti-graffiti strategy.

“A national litter strategy is something I believe could be of benefit to Wales,” he said.

“I have received correspondence in the past from residents of Wales and visitors complaining about the image presented by litter alongside our roads and motorways.

“I would like to see it combined with an anti-graffiti strategy. At the moment graffiti is not removed quickly unless it is racist or offensive.”

Earlier this week, we also said the time is now right for a national approach which would treat littering as the crime that it is.

We asked the Welsh Government to respond to calls for a national litter strategy.

A spokesman said: “We’re committed to tackling littering and our main focus is on preventing it occurring in the first place. We provide funding to Local Authorities and organisations such as Keep Wales Tidy to support education programmes, community projects, awareness raising and enforcement campaigns.”

Following Monmouthshire’s announcement, two of Gwent’s four remaining councils have confirmed plans to create their own litter strategy.

Newport City Council have confirmed they are in the process of merging its enforcement team with its cleansing team in preparation of developing a coherent and integrated litter strategy.

A Newport council spokesman added they would also support the idea of a national strategy with prior consultation with the relevant parties.

READ MORE: Newport pays £16million a year to clean up litter and fly-tipping

On a local level, Caerphilly County Borough Council said they would wait to see what merits came from Monmouthshire’s example, before committing to their own strategy.

Cllr Nigel George, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhood Services explained:

“We appreciate it is only the small minority who feel it is acceptable to litter, and we’re always keen to explore additional ways in which to tackle this important environmental issue. We would need to understand what added value a strategy would provide and will be exploring the relative merits”.

But speaking on a Wales-wide level, a Caerphilly council spokesman addedthat there may well be a place for a strategy to address some aspects of this issue at source including approaches to packaging and producer responsibility for commonly littered items such as takeaway food litter.”

Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council also told the South Wales Argus they would be implementing their own public litter strategy across the local authority “within the next 12 months”, while Torfaen Council failed to respond to requests for a comment from the South Wales Argus.