Drivers are being encouraged to ditch their dirty habits of throwing rubbish out of car windows onto the motorways.

With summer bringing large inflows of tourists to Cumbria, a mission to reduce the widespread problem of litter on motorways and trunk roads has been launched at the north bound M6 Tebay Services.

A lorry filled with bags of refuse, collected off the motorway by members of the Highways Agency, was displayed to appeal to drivers to make appropriate use of the amenities available for rubbish disposal.

The exhibition, which is funded through taxes, aims to rapidly reduce the high levels of expenditure spent on litter collection and promote the national 'Have you dropped one?' campaign led by the Keep Britain Tidy Group.

Representatives, who gathered outside the services to talk to drivers and handed out car stickers as a form of communicating with drivers all over Britain, hoped that this action would effectively help reduce the problem.

Surveys produced by the Keep Britain Tidy Group reveal that every weekend 1.3 million pieces of litter dumped on the roads, with problem areas identified as the exit roads from service stations.

Jo Whitaker, the North West Director of Tidy Britain Group, is anxious for the message to be spread that these litter louts are "unacceptable, unsociable and criminal".