A Load Of Rubbish
Conwy is the cleanest county in Wales according to a recent Keep Wales Tidy report, while Blaenau Gwent is the worst for litter.
Surveyors for environmental campaigners Keep Wales Tidy spent 12 months visiting every county in Wales to carry out inspections. Of the streets tested, only 1.9% had no litter but the overall cleanliness of Wales has improved since last year.
The report ‘How clean are our streets?’ says that the most common litter was smoking related, found in an average of 86% of the locations tested, with the worst being Cardiff, Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly and Rhondda Cynon Taf. But there has been a decrease of 4% of smoking litter since last year.
“Were it not for the presence of smoking related litter, our streets would have achieved a much better cleanliness score, a sad fact that has led us to mount our biggest ever smoking litter campaign,” said Tegryn Jones, Chief Executive of Keep Wales Tidy.
“It’s obvious that smokers do not realise that they are letting Wales down by not binning their butts and we plan to remind them of their social and legal obligations.”
The report makes recommendations to local authorities on how to improve the cleanliness of their streets. These include using enforcement powers and by encouraging community involvement in improving their local environment.
Monmouthshire and Newport were the most improved counties comparing to last years results.
In Blaenau Gwent the worst littering was drinks related with 81.7% of the streets affected, in Cardiff 28.3% of litter was discarded fast food.
Business Waste was found on 18.3% of streets. Dog fouling was a major problem in Blaenau Gwent. There were no acts of vandalism found on the streets visited in Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Neath Port Talbot. Fly posting was present in 14% of the streets in Ceredigion but none was spotted in Monmouthshire, Anglesey and Caerphilly.
“I am pleased to see that that there has been an overall increase in the cleanliness of town centres across Wales,” said Environment Minister, Jane Davidson.
“The presence of smoking related litter is still high but I am encouraged that this and other litter issues are being tackled by a number of local authorities with the help of Keep Wales Tidy. Wales is making steady progress in becoming a cleaner nation and I look forward to further improvements in the future."
Top five cleanest counties – Conwy, Anglesey, Pembrokeshire, Powys and
Ceredigion.
The worst three counties for littering – Blaenau Gwent, Cardiff and
Merthyr Tydfil.
What do you think of the cleanliness of your county and what can be done to improve the situation?
A full copy of the report is available at: www.keepwalestidy.org/2924
Photo credit: Roomic Cube
