Raffle rolled out to thank residents for helping to keep city litter free

The council’s waste enforcement contractor 3GS are issuing raffle tickets to thank residents for responsibly disposing of litter in the city.

In the weeks to come, a draw will be made and £100 worth of Amazon vouchers distributed as a small thank you to people for disposing of their rubbish in the bins the city council provides.

It’s planned to make the raffle a regular offer as a way of rewarding people for looking after their environment and making sure litter is put in the bins.

Anyone seen disposing of litter safely could potentially be handed a raffle ticket, while those seen dropping litter will be issued with a fixed penalty.

The raffle is part of the waste enforcement contract with 3GS which includes education and information work as well as enforcement through fines. In fact fines collected from the fixed penalty notices will be used to fund the education activities.

Councillor Gill Mitchell, chair of the environment, transport and sustainability committee, said:  “It’s important we recognise people in the city who already dispose of litter properly and look after their areas, to encourage positive behaviour The aim of any waste reduction and prevention strategy – of which enforcement is one part – is to bring about long term behavioural change. We made it clear at the outset that positive reinforcement is just as important as a robust enforcement regime.”

An update on the waste enforcement contract was presented to the Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee on 11 October. The committee agreed to develop an ongoing education and communications plan for the service which started in February and is part of the city council’s drive to keep the streets clean and tidy.

In the last two months the council has worked closely with 3GS to target incidents that are of most concern to residents. In the last eight weeks, 27 fixed penalty notices (FPNs) were issued for flytipping, compared to eight in the first eight weeks of operation and 65 were given out for commercial waste offences compared with 36 issued in the preceeding eight weeks. More fixed penalty notices were issued for commercial waste offences than for cigarette-related offences during this period (there were 54 cigarette related FPNs), although as we know from evidence from Keep Britain Tidy, cigarette related litter is a big issue across the country.* 

In the first six months officers from 3GS issued 1082 fixed penalty notices for environmental offences, compared to just 80 in the whole of 2014/15.

Environmental crimes common in the city range from flytipping, flyposting and littering to unauthorised distribution of leaflets as well as a variety of litter purposely dropped or left in the streets or open spaces. 

The committee also agreed to trial the trial the introduction of CCTV cameras for the enforcement of offences which are more difficult to enforce such as flytipping where there is often not enough evidence about who has caused it. The CCTV will be placed in known ‘hot spot’ areas and will be able to be moved around so that areas of most concern are covered.

*An estimated 244million cigarette butts are dropped on the UK’s streets, parks and beaches every year – that’s 104 tonnes of butts, the weight of 13 double decker buses