Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse (Scotland) 2018

4.0 Fulfilling Duty 1

4.1 Litter and refuse grades

These are set as grades from A to F, with A reflecting that no litter or refuse is present (the standard) and F that potentially dangerous materials need to be removed as early as practicable. Bodies should draw on the photographed examples, provided on pages 14 to 15, to assess their land and roads.

These grades should be used when monitoring. The guideline number of items specified in the following photographs should be applied to areas of 100m ².

Note that:

• large items (larger than a credit card) include but are not limited to drinks containers, food packaging, carrier bags, newspapers, crisp packets/large sweet packets, cigarette packaging items, food waste (banana skin, sandwich etc.), and dog faeces
• small items include but are not limited to cigarette ends, receipts, tickets, individual sweet wrappers, and small food waste items (e.g. individual crisps)
• where a combination of both exists, six small items should be regarded as one large item e.g. 13 large items and 30 small items would become 18 large items making it a grade D
• flytipping is the illegal disposal of controlled waste – from a single bag of waste to large quantities of domestic, commercial or construction waste.

A body should be able to justify its litter and refuse grades and have evidence to prove that it is fulfilling its duty/ies.

Further advice and high resolution photographs can be found at
www.zerowastescotland.org.uk/COPLAR

Litter and Refuse Grade A: No litter or refuse is present on any type of land

Litter and Refuse Grade B: Small amounts of litter and refuse

As a guide, fewer than 5 large items or fewer than 30 small items of litter and refuse

Litter and Refuse Grade C: Moderate amounts of litter and refuse, with small accumulations

As a guide, 5-15 large items or 30-90 small items of litter or refuse

Litter and Refuse Grade D: Significant amounts of litter and refuse, with consistent distribution and accumulations

As a guide, 16-30 large items or 91-180 small items of litter and refuse

Litter and Refuse Grade E: Substantial amounts of litter and refuse with significant accumulations

As a guide, more than 30 large items or more than 180 small items of litter and refuse

Litter and Refuse Grade F: Incidents of flytipping and hazardous/special waste (drug related waste, broken glass, animal carcasses, car parts, chemicals, and spillages)

4.2 Tactics – how prevention can be used to meet the standard

An area that has no litter or refuse does not need to be cleared. Bodies should therefore consider what they can do to encourage people not to litter in the first place. By implementing a sustainable approach to meeting the duty, bodies will have a greater degree of flexibility to allow resources to be used in a proactive manner.

The zoning exercise will help bodies to determine where litter and refuse problems are, and how they might prevent these. Drawing on zone assessment findings, bodies should then find ways to influence positive litter/refuse behaviours.

The decisions bodies make about appropriate preventative measures should be tailored to their zones’ particular circumstances and may include, but are not limited to, the following examples:

• improved monitoring – understanding where and why a zone is not meeting the standard can help make decisions about further tactics to use
• communications – signs, news stories, marketing materials, social media
• engagement – stakeholder and community engagement
• partnership working – with other bodies/businesses/community groups to address problems across boundaries
• infrastructure – facilities/services including smart bins and recycle on the go containers
• service optimisation – cleansing schedules, action to reduce waste escaping from kerbside collections, deployment of temporary resources (such as for a short-life event), upskilling staff, litter pick grass areas before mowing
• enforcement – where, when and how enforcement teams are deployed or to create Litter Control Areas
• demand management – focus resources according to needs, for example one-off events or better weather means more visitors to parks.

In deciding the appropriate mix of tactics to develop and deploy, bodies may find the National Litter Strategy’s content about influencing people’s behaviour ^[24] helpful. It is based on research and evidence that people’s choices and behaviours are influenced by three contexts: individual, social and material.

Preventing litter and refuse from being dropped means that:

areas should retain the standard (Grade A) for longer – as it should take longer for the grade to deteriorate

the speed and frequency of restorative action to meet the standard can therefore reduce – meaning expensive clean-up operations can be focused on priority areas.

The way that prevention contributes to fulfilling Duty 1 is that when people dispose of materials responsibly, rather than letting them become litter or refuse, there is less for a body to remove in order to meet the standard.

How far prevention goes towards fulfilling the duty will be determined by the effectiveness of the tactics that each body decides to use.

Further advice can be obtained from Zero Waste Scotland
www.zerowastescotland.org.uk/COPLAR

4.3 Response Times

Duty 1 response times are structured as four bands that recognise bodies’ investment in prevention. It reflects that effective measures increase the likelihood of zones being cleaner for longer, which reduces the need for rapid restoration.

The basic response times (band 1) are based on a body allocating between 0 and 10% of its overall litter and flytipping spend on prevention tactics. The response times (bands 2 to 4) increase in proportion to prevention spend.

Note that litter and refuse clearance should not count as prevention spend. Although it supports preventing further problems, the motivation for deploying it is to restore zones to the standard. However, activities that improve local environmental quality would be considered preventative spend. Bodies must be able to clearly demonstrate how they allocate spend if asked by a court to do so.

To justify moving up the extended response time bands, a body must continue to invest in prevention and be satisfied that the success of its preventative measures meets the standard. Consideration should be given to how this can be evidenced e.g. through regular monitoring.

It is expected that each body’s response times will reflect its preventative spend in the previous financial year, unless it has certainty and evidence of its finance within a current financial year.

Special considerations are outlined within 3.2.

Bodies should also recognise their duties under The Bathing Waters (Scotland) Regulations 2008, where pollution by litter and refuse is of risk to bathers’ health and safety. Remediation should take place within the response times indicated above or within a maximum of seven days, whichever is a lesser time period.

Once an area is restored, prevention tactics should support maintaining the standard.

Duty 1 response times

The bands and percentage of overall litter/flytipping spend on prevention tactics are:

Band 1: basic response times, based on 0-10% spend on prevention

Zone	Litter and Refuse Grade						Special Considerations
	F	E	D	C	B	A
1	At the earliest practicable opportunity	1 hour	2 hours	3 hours	12 hours	Clear of litter and refuse	14 days
2		2 hours	4 hours	5 hours	24 hours		21 days
3		6 hours	8 hours	9 hours	48 hours		28 days
4		24 hours	36 hours	48 hours	7 days		35 days
5		48 hours	60 hours	3 days	14 days		42 days
6		14 days	21 days	28 days	42 days		No additional time

Band 2: Response times based on 11-20% spend on prevention

Zone	Litter and Refuse Grade						Special Considerations
	F	E	D	C	B	A
1	At the earliest practicable opportunity	2 hours	3 hours	4 hours	24 hours	Clear of litter and refuse	21 days
2		4 hours	6 hours	8 hours	48 hours		28 days
3		8 hours	10 hours	12 hours	3 days		35 days
4		36 hours	48 hours	3 days	10 days		42 days
5		3 days	4 days	5 days	18 days		49 days
6		21 days	28 days	35 days	49 days		No additional time

Band 3: Response times based on 21-30% spend on prevention

Zone	Litter and Refuse Grade						Special Considerations
	F	E	D	C	B	A
1	At the earliest practicable opportunity	4 hours	5 hours	7 hours	36 hours	Clear of litter and refuse	28 days
2		6 hours	8 hours	12 hours	3 days		35 days
3		12 hours	14 hours	18 hours	4 days		42 days
4		3 days	4 days	5 days	13 days		49 days
5		5 days	6 days	8 days	22 days		56 days
6		28 days	35 days	42 days	56 days		No additional time

Band 4: Response times based on >30% spend on prevention

Zone	Litter and Refuse Grade						Special Considerations
	F	E	D	C	B	A
1	At the earliest practicable opportunity	8 hours	10 hours	12 hours	48 hours	Clear of litter and refuse	42 days
2		12 hours	14 hours	18 hours	4 days		49 days
3		24 hours	48 hours	60 hours	5 days		56 days
4		5 days	6 days	7 days	16 days		63 days
5		7 days	9 days	10 days	26 days		70 days
6		35 days	42 days	49 days	70 days		No additional time

As examples:

• For a body that allocates 0-10% (band 1) of its overall spend on litter and flytipping to prevention tactics, when its category 1 zone is of a D grade, it has two hours to restore it to an A.
• For a body that allocates >30% (band 4) of its overall spend on litter and flytipping to prevention tactics, when its category 1 zone is of a D grade, it has 10 hours to restore it to an A.

As effective prevention tactics reduce the scale of a zone’s litter and refuse problem, the need for rapid and frequent restoration to standard also reduces.

Extended response time bands recognise this principle and reward bodies for investing in appropriate preventative tactics. A body can only progress through the bands when it can demonstrate that its tactics are effective and support meeting the standard.

Further advice can be obtained from Zero Waste Scotland
www.zerowastescotland.org.uk/COPLAR