Air passengers are having to bin around £143 million-worth of liquids a year pre-flight as they are unaware of hand luggage security restrictions, according to a poll.

As many as 51 per cent of those who had flown in the past year said they had to discard items such as drinks, sun cream, perfume and hair products from their hand luggage before passing through airport security.

The average value of the binned items was £6.50, according to the survey by travel agent www.sunshine.co.uk. But despite an apparent lack of knowledge about the hand-luggage regulations, the vast majority of passengers supported the security measures, with 81 per cent saying they were glad they were in place.

Sunshine.co.uk co-founder Chris Brown said: “The new restrictions mean you really need to be careful when packing. Don’t put any toiletries over 100ml in your hand luggage, because it’ll just have to be binned before you go through security.”