New fund to reduce litter in England

Almost £500,000 will be awarded to community projects to tackle littering, the Environment Minister has announced.

The money will support the development of new innovation and approaches for tackling litter, from better positioned bins and recycling points to digital technology. This includes apps and ‘smart-bins’ that text alerts to rubbish collectors when they are full, stopping litter spill out onto the street or leading people to litter nearby.

Cleaning up the country’s streets costs tax payers almost £800 million a year.

The Litter Innovation Fund will support local areas to crack down and reduce littering in their communities by enabling local authorities, community groups, charities, educational institutions, and small and medium enterprises to apply for funding towards innovative and creative solutions to the problem.

All projects will be measured and evaluated to assess their effectiveness and the most successful can be rolled out more widely. This will ensure local authorities and communities make the best use of innovative solutions in focusing their resources to tackle litter.

In addition, some £45,000 of the fund will be dedicated to projects designed to address marine littering and help prevent the amount of plastic entering England’s oceans.

The fund builds on the government’s wider Litter Strategy for England.

Thérèse Coffey, Environment Minister, said: “Tackling the litter that blights streets across our country is an important part of our drive to be the first generation to leave our environment in a better state than we found it. I pay tribute to those who help clear up our pavements and verges.

“The Litter Innovation Fund offers a great opportunity for the most creative solutions to littering to receive funding and for us all to learn new ways of how to stop littering happening. 10 per cent of the fund is entirely dedicated to preventing marine litter, a growing problem with global consequences for our precious marine environment.

“I encourage groups to get involved and showcase the wealth of options there are out there to tackle littering. Let’s help people make the right choices.”

Marcus Jones, Communities Minister, said: “The Litter Strategy detailed our plans on education and awareness, improving enforcement and better cleaning and infrastructure. I said in that strategy that I am passionate about our need to reduce litter in this country and I meant it.

“Many areas are similarly keen to tackle litter locally by encouraging their communities to bin their rubbish properly rather than littering their streets and green spaces.

“We are looking to support the most creative plans with a funding boost from the Litter Innovation Fund.”

Allison Ogden-Newton, chief executive of Keep Britain Tidy, added: “Innovation is vital if we are to change the behaviour of the minority of people who still think it is okay to drop their rubbish on the ground for someone else to pick up.

“Keep Britain Tidy’s Centre for Social Innovation was created to develop and test new approaches to behaviour change and we are delighted to see the Government has recognised the importance of innovation to tackle the blight of littering in our country.”