Action update on tackling litter and waste

As 2024 comes to a close, we have been reflecting on the work we’ve done to support the delivery of the Year 2 Action Plan of the Scottish Government’s National Litter and Flytipping Strategy for Scotland.

Published in June 2023, we, alongside the Scottish Government, Zero Waste Scotland and the Scottish Environment Protect Agency (SEPA) have been leading on a range of actions to drive forward the strategy.  

Thanks to strong support from our funders, partners, communities and individuals who all trust us to work in partnership with them to address the challenges of litter and littering behaviour, we’ve been able to inspire change to improve our environment.

Over the past six months we have: 

• Launched a roadside litter campaign, including focus groups and on the ground messaging, in partnership with Perth and Kinross Council and the local community;
• Updated and promoted the Community Litter Hub to key audiences;
• Supported 33 people who attended regional and online litter workshops to learn more about the challenges and actions they could take.
• Brought the Community Reference Group together twice with another meeting planned for early 2025;
• Convened the Data Group twice to progress data collecting methodologies; and
• Formed a new group bringing together organisations and coordinators of citizen science data to look at addressing barriers to citizen science data being used to influence policy and identify steps needed to increase its value.

Out with the work we are doing to support the strategy, we’ve recently published our ground litter survey data in the report – How Clean Are Our Streets 2023/2024 – and encouragingly we are seeing some improvements across Scotland, which we are keen to build on.

Paul Wallace, our Head of Operations commented, “We're committed to collaborating with our partners to drive implementation of the action plan as we look to 2025.  We aim to strengthen the partnerships we already have, develop new ones and identify funding to enable us to do what we do best – deliver outcomes on the ground.

“We still need more action. We need sustained investment, and regulatory proposals must not slip if we are to ensure meaningful action is taken to change the behaviours that lead to litter impacting our health and wellbeing, our economy and our beautiful country.”

We don’t want to see a littered Scotland next year.  If you don’t either – get involved, register a Spring Clean, carry out a litter survey, or check out the Community Litter Hub.