Welsh councils spend millions of pounds picking litter off the side of roads.

But few people are caught for the crime which local authorities say is impossible to police and dangerous to clean up.

The Welsh Government plans to change the law to fine vehicle owners to make it easier to catch offenders.

The owner would be punished, regardless of whether they threw the litter, or were even in the car at the time.

The BBC has heard stories of cyclists waiting in traffic throwing rubbish back though people’s windows to shame them into stopping littering.

Councils are responsible for cleaning roads, with the Welsh Government responsible for major routes including the M4 and a short section of A55.

In Merthyr Tydfil alone the council spent over £2.6m cleaning up litter from roadsides between March 2015 and March 2019, according to figures obtained by BBC Wales.

This includes the costs of closing stretches of road, overtime, equipment to protect workers and lighting.

Despite this, not a single person in the county borough was fined for throwing litter out of a vehicle

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