More must be done to raise awareness of the dangerous effects of laughing gas, councils have warned.
The Local Government Association (LGA) said it was "deeply disturbed" that nitrous oxide - which can result in a loss of blood pressure, fainting and even heart attacks - is still viewed as a safe legal high.
On a single Saturday night, one London council confiscated more than 1,200 canisters of laughing gas, while other local authorities are seizing "hauls" of the chemical, according to the Local Government Association.
Hackney Council in east London said that it took the small metal containers outside the pubs and clubs in Shoreditch on a Saturday night last month.
Officials in Norfolk, Hertfordshire and Thames Valley have reported increasing numbers of cannisters being found.
A team of detectives and specialists is set to begin a painstaking excavation of the area where Ben is thought to have gone missing in 1991.
The foreign secretary's suggestion last week's bombing of an aid convoy might constitute a war crime prompted an angry response from Moscow.
Goals from Charlie Austin, Dusan Tadic and James Ward-Prowse consigned Slaven Bilic's men to their fourth straight Premier League loss.