Press Release
Litter Mountain on the Street
Dealing with litter in Shetland is costing the Council £113,000 every year. That startling figure was part of a publicity event set up by the Council today at Irvine Place, Commercial Street. The centre-piece of the event was a pile of nine tonne-bags filled with rubbish which represented the amount of litter collected from Commercial Street in one month.
Maggie Dunne from the Council’s Environmental Health Service who organised the event, said “People have been shocked by the amount of rubbish on display today. After a Saturday night the street is in a terrible state, but it is cleaned up before most of us get to see it”.
Shetland Islands Council’s Street Cleansing Team and Environmental Health were out on the street talking to people about the impact of litter and issuing fixed penalty fines to anyone seen dropping rubbish. They were also highlighting photographs showing the consequences of littering for people, places and wildlife.
The event was particularly focused on smokers as an estimated 122 tonnes of cigarette butts and cigarette-related litter is dropped every day across the UK. Staff handed out free portable ashtrays or “butt pouches” for smokers to encourage them to take their rubbish home.
Ms Dunne “Many people think that dropping one piece of litter, especially something small like a cigarette butt, doesn’t matter, but we want to show the accumulative effect of all those small pieces of rubbish – it soon builds up. If we didn’t clean it up, we’d be knee deep in no time. The simple message is “bin it”. There is no need to drop litter. If there isn’t a litterbin nearby, wait until you get to the nearest one or keep your rubbish until you get home”.
Today’s event is part of Keep Scotland Beautiful’s National Litter Day of Action. For more information, visit: http://www.keepscotlandtidy.org/litterdayofaction.asp