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Give Your Litter A Lift campaign launches

12:01pm - 28 January 2022
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More than half the litter on our streets comes from people eating and drinking. We have teamed up with Keep Scotland Beautiful (KSB) to appeal to residents to get rid of their litter responsibly.

According to KSB, 50 tonnes of litter is abandoned on Scotland’s roadsides each month and in 2021 in North Lanarkshire, the council collected over 1,700 tonnes of rubbish from street bins and litter picking.

The campaign is also supported by McDonald’s and Costa Coffee.

“There is no excuse for littering,” said Councillor Michael McPake, Convener of the Environment and Transportation Committee. “Use a public bin or take it home and put it in your household waste bin – it’s that simple.

“Unfortunately too many people don’t do that, and a particular problem is people throwing litter from their vehicle.

“As a result, our roadsides are a mess of cans, bottles, takeaway cups, and food wrappers. As well as making the area look terrible, litter is harmful to the environment and it’s difficult, dangerous and expensive to clean up.

“So we are appealing to the public through this campaign to give their litter a lift and take it home. Please take responsibility for your litter and help us make North Lanarkshire a clean, attractive place to live, work, learn, invest and visit.”

The campaign will be rolled out across North Lanarkshire, focussing on hot spots where roadside littering is a particular problem and around takeaways.

KSB has successfully used the campaign to address the problem of roadside litter which affects 82% of main roads and key routes across Scotland.

Barry Fisher, CEO of Keep Scotland Beautiful commented, “It is really exciting to be launching our partnership with North Lanarkshire Council to tackle litter, particularly by the roadsides. Our national surveys show that 78% of A roads and main roads are blighted with food and drink items – all of which should have been binned or recycled.

“We are pleased that the local campaign is being supported by Costa and McDonald’s and as part of this partnership we look forward to sharing learning from some of our past national roadside litter interventions and to developing bespoke and new ones to help fight the national looming litter emergency at a local level.”

McDonald’s and Costa Coffee are supporting the campaign, with materials placed around their outlets in the area.

McDonald’s Operations Consultant, Julian Rumsey said: “We’re really excited to be partnering with the Council, Keep Scotland Beautiful and Costa to help drive impactful change on litter across North Lanarkshire. As a local business, we will continue to do everything we can – from daily litter patrols to community clean ups – to help keep our streets clean. Get involved - give your litter a lift!”

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Page last updated:
04 Mar 2022

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