Delivering action against the National Litter and Flytipping Strategy

We’re committed to tackling litter and waste and declared a litter emergency based on evidence from our surveys, audits and Scottish Litter Survey.   

Over the past nine months, since the publication of the Scottish  Government’s National Litter and Flytipping Strategy for Scotland, we’ve been working hard to deliver key actions outlined in the Year 1 2023/24 Action Plan. 

Now as we approach the end of the first year, we are delighted to report that we are on track to complete our actions thanks to the collaboration, support and dedication of our many supporters, stakeholders, funders and employees. 

We’ve brought together key stakeholders to form a Community Reference Group to help us stay on track and focus on what matters to them, enabling us to lead on engaging and empowering communities through the creation of an online litter hub due to go live in April, alongside the development and testing of a new community focused litter education programme.  

We are also currently testing behaviour based interventions at three locations to tackle single-use on-the-go food and drink litter in collaboration with Forth Valley College, Clackmannanshire Council, Stirling Council and Falkirk Council, and Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP). 

Our proven track record developed over the last two decades working collaboratively with all Scottish local authorities to gather data and evidence on local environmental quality has allowed us to lead on workstreams collating information on litter data and looking at the potential of the data going forward - including improving consistency. We have also supported the development of the Litter Monitoring System to complement our national LEAMS dataset. 

Our team has established the Data Management Group, conducted interviews with key stakeholders, researched and analysed existing technical data sets, scoped out current citizen science data sets and compiled reports identifying opportunities for Year 2. 

Over the coming weeks we will finalise reports, evaluate our intervention to tackle single-use on-the-go food and drink packaging and publish the online litter hub to support communities across the country.  

Barry Fisher, our CEO, said: “The overwhelming support we have had from volunteers giving up their time to support the work of the Community Reference Group, and of our partners and local authority colleagues who have contributed to, reviewed and supported our proposals, has been very much appreciated, and I would like to say a massive thank you to them all for helping us move so far forward over the past nine months.   

“We remain committed to delivering action and inspiring behaviour change to tackle litter and are proud to have played a very hands-on role to support the ambition of the Year 1 Action Plan of the National Litter and Flytipping Strategy.  

“We recognise the actions taken to date to deliver Scotland’s Litter and Flytipping Strategy are only a small step in the right direction. Our priority for Year 2 is to maintain momentum and build on the work of this year.  There is so much more for us all to do if we are to tackle the challenges of littering behaviour and the litter emergency. 

“We need urgent policy and strategies that are adequately and meaningfully resourced. While we are hopeful that forthcoming policy, including the Circular Economy Bill, Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations and the proposals in Scotland for litter to be included, will have a positive impact and help us and others in their efforts to tackle the litter emergency, these measures need to be implemented urgently without further delay.” 

If you want to take action on the ground, you can get involved with a litter pick or survey as part of our Upstream Battle®campaign or take part in our upcoming #SpringCleanScotland 2024 which takes place from 15 March to 28 April.