Litter, bins and street sweeping

We provide litter picking and street sweeping services in line with the Environmental protection Act 1990, (EPA).

This national legislation sets out standards of maintenance and zoning within towns and cities that define how often particular areas should be cleaned or kept free of litter.

Not all areas are maintained to the same standard/regime due to location, as well as this there are many areas not owned by us where we have no legal obligation to keep these areas free of litter.

Anyone found to have or been reported for causing or dropping litter can be issued with a fixed penalty notice of £80 under section 87 point 1 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (EPA).

We report on standards of street cleanliness through Keep Scotland Beautiful (KSB). Three surveys are carried out throughout the year (two undertaken internally and one by KSB), these figures are collated to provide an annual score which can then be measured against the EPA and other local authorities. In recent years SLC has regularly attained good scores for the cleanliness of its public areas, for 2016-17 we were ranked in the top five for all 32 Scottish local authorities.

SLC are responsible for ensuring the public spaces it owns are kept litter free, these include public roads and footpaths, parks, open spaces, watercourses, play areas, cemeteries, woodlands, etc, we also empty all council owned bins on a regular basis as well ensuring that all public roads and footpaths are swept on a routine and scheduled basis.

Littering and fly tipping is a major issue for all local authorities, areas that suffer from constant littering or poor litter collection can look very neglected which can lead to further issues such anti-social behaviour, graffiti, fly posting. There is a greater emphasis now on litter prevention.

Council budgets on litter collection are high, we spend millions of pounds on lifting and disposing of litter, we are therefore looking at developing strategies and plans to send a clear message that we all have a responsibility to prevent littering and reduce these high costs.