The Scottish Government’s Programme for Government announced yesterday fails to address any of our political priorities – climate and nature education which featured last year have been dropped, and tackling the litter emergency and delivering clean, green and sustainable community spaces for everyone don’t get a reference either. And yet, it’s clear that if we are to deliver on Scotland’s Net Zero ambition, and vision of a litter free country, there is a need for greater awareness of the scale of the challenges, and increased investment to support the upswelling of action.
Alongside David Leask, journalist with The Times who was reporting on the litter issue across Scotland, our CEO Barry Fisher recently participated in a local environmental quality survey of Glasgow city centre and a litter pick between four McDonald’s stores.
What this highlighted was the sad acceptance that cityscapes will always be a wee bit dirty, the frustration at the way people treat our urban spaces and more positively it shone a light on the ordinary people, doing amazing things to make Glasgow cleaner.
Keeping our cities centres clean and welcoming is hugely challenging, time consuming and costly. We know litter, graffiti, dog poo and flytipped waste make us feel embarrassed of our communities, we understand that people feel uncomfortable in areas that look and feel dirty. And, it is true that people think litter damages the reputation of their local areas amongst tourists.
Nationally more than 70% of our streets are littered and my colleagues and I are getting increasingly frustrated at the lack of positive movement in national figures. Every year our national audits paint a similar picture – one of poor environmental quality in too many of our cities, towns and villages. Each year our public perception surveys highlight the same story – despite our best efforts to make Scotland cleaner and greener we seem to have hit a plateau.
We are equally frustrated by the lack of political priority given to litter - an issue that is highlighted by almost 90% of people as being a problem nationally year after year after year.
Glasgow city centre is one of the busiest places in Scotland, with footfall sensors picking up around five million people a month across the three main city streets. Evening footfall and the night-time economy contribute significantly in these key city centre locations. But, with people, come challenges.
The city council offers a 24-hour street cleansing and litter service seven days a week, 365 days a year. Let’s Go Glasgow, the new business improvement district in the city centre adds value to this through its Clean Team - making improvements to ‘binfrastructure’, removing stickering, flyposting and graffiti while encouraging businesses to work with them to improve the state of lanes.
And yet, as I walked through the city centre with David and volunteers from McDonald’s we saw, what is unfortunately now expected, tolerated and possibly almost becoming accepted, litter of all types along with graffiti tagging, stickering and vandalism of our public spaces.
Glasgow faces huge challenges, but it is not alone - other major cities in the UK and across Europe are also grappling with how to clean up and shift habits to reengage pride in places.
In an article for The Herald in 2021 David highlighted that in Sicily, daily newspaper Quotidiano di Sicilia declared that the entire province of Siracusa was facing a rubbish emergency. He also put a spotlight on the rubbish emergency in Italy’s capital Rome – where serious littering and piles of bags near street bins were impacting the city. There are reports in papers in France, in Spain, and in Russia of the high volumes of rubbish in our streets and open spaces.
One thing is clear, where there are people - litter and waste can be found. In Scotland this is backed up by public opinion – with 74% of people in urban areas believing litter is an issue compared to 10% less in rural areas.
And while we admit we can’t do much as a small charity to tackle the criminal gangs dumping waste illegally under the M8, in derelict buildings and on land waiting for development. We can keep working to influence individual behaviours and support people to do the right thing with their waste.
For the minority that litter, sticker and graffiti there are many more who volunteer their time to clean up.
As part of the drive to ensure that Glasgow was welcoming ahead of, during and post the Commonwealth Games we supported a number of corporate organisations to engage their employees with litter picking activities – from an on the water event with Coca-Cola Euro Pacific to a city centre clean up with Marks & Spencer’s, to a litter picking relay between four McDonald’s restaurants, our team were out helping people to make a positive difference. Add to this the 35,000 people who took part in a litter pick as part of #SpringCleanScotland 2026 and it is a real army of people who care.
The young people who joined me from McDonald’s were passionate about why they felt they needed to clean up their city – one employee told us that she loved her city, and felt that litter reflected badly on those that cared about Glasgow, she said, “we aren’t all dirty, most people do the right thing and use the bins” – and she is right.
But, as our Head of Operations Paul Wallace said to me, there is no point pretending that there is some shadowy group out there dropping litter, it is us, our families, our neighbours and the people we pass in the street who are responsible.
The new to the scene litter items, including a buzz ball we picked up next to a bin and the nicotine pouches easily mistaken for the more commonly recorded cigarette butts that we pulled out of pavement cracks had been dropped without a second thought of the consequences. The vape stickers all over bins making them unattractive to users, and the ‘tagging stickers’ on signs and lampposts and street furniture – which some see as a form of artistic expression – are all acts of illegal behaviours or vandalism.
The juxtaposition of the helium gas canister placed in a cardboard box with some waste food packaging next to a bin highlighted the bourach of waste types which cause challenges and pose risks to those tasked with removing it.
And while even we caught ourselves saying that it wasn’t too bad, and less extreme when compared to the scale of flytipping seen in other areas, they add up and create an appearance that isn’t beautiful – and we need to ask ourselves if we are happy to accept that people aren’t taking responsibility for their waste.
We keep calling for public behaviour to change. But we all need to shout louder. We need more people to shout alongside us.
It is clear that packaging needs to be reduced by producers, but crucially we also need to invest far more money to change behaviours.
The Scottish Government’s commitment to look at making producers responsible for the clean-up and disposal costs of litter from their packaging is welcome, as is the opportunity a Deposit Return Scheme will bring to tackle bottles and cans found in the litter stream from October 2027. But these things can’t come soon enough. And if they aren't anywhere near the 2025/2026 Programme for Government what does this mean.
Every day we wait, more litter is added to the streets.
Ultimately people need to change what they do with their rubbish. Millions are doing the right thing and binning or recycling their waste. Thousands are taking the extra step and helping remove litter with litter picks, and yet we are on a treadmill….
Join us in the mission to keep Scotland beautiful. Value your waste. Put your litter in a bin, the right bin, or take it home.
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