Summit to devise 'litter assault'

The Keep Scotland Beautiful campaign is calling for more fines for litter louts

Scotland's first "litter summit" is due to be held in Edinburgh.

Environmental organisations, businesses and local authorities are meeting to plan a new assault on rubbish.

Campaign group Keep Scotland Beautiful has organised the summit. It estimates that councils spend �100m a year on street cleaning.

It will present 10 measures to decrease litter, such as pressurising businesses to reduce packaging, introducing easier recycling facilities and more fines.

Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead, who will be speaking at the event, said: "Scotland is one of the world's most scenic and beautiful countries and its beauty is an asset that should not be blighted.

"As part of moving Scotland towards becoming a zero waste society, the Scottish Government has put a significant amount of work into areas like recycling.

"However, litter remains an unsightly problem for urban areas, affecting quality of life and community morale. It is also a problem that costs money to deal with."

'Expensive nuisance'

He said councils spent more than �3.5m on litter enforcement activities a year.

"Clearly we all need to do more to reduce the amount of waste in the street, on our roads, on railways lines, in rivers and at other areas where it is an expensive nuisance," he added.

"Today's summit is a first step in the right direction."

John Summers, chief executive of Keep Scotland Beautiful, said a recent survey by his organisation suggested that almost half of the Scottish population dropped litter.

He said: "I have high hopes that this litter summit will give us, and the Scottish Government, a renewed focus on how to deal with the culture change that is required to stop people littering our beautiful country.

"Continuing to educate people, provide better services and issue fines are just three of the ways we would like to see the litter issue tackled across the country."

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