Litter strategy - five years on: review

5. Conclusions

This review of Scotland's first National Litter Strategy, which was undertaken in 2019, has demonstrated significant progress has been made but also confirms that significant challenges remain. However, a greater understanding of the impact of litter and flytipping pollution, the need to reduce our demand on resources and the urgency required for climate change action has resulted in a renewed impetus and realisation that things must improve.

Since the strategy was published in 2014, a great deal has changed. The 'Blue Planet' effect and declarations of a climate emergency have helped to spark a movement to protect biodiversity and the effects of climate change. At the time of the previous Strategy, the issues of litter and flytipping were less recognisably linked to these issues, but this is no longer the case. This, therefore, provides an important opportunity to move the agenda forward.

Section 4 lists just some of the policy activity that is taking place in what is a justifiably busy area. With this in mind, and the feedback that has been provided as part of the review, there are a number of options that might be considered for moving forward with litter and flytipping prevention activity. There was a clear consensus that a light touch revision of the current strategy would not be sufficient to reflect the changes that have occurred. Rather, review participants supported a more substantive review and refresh of Scotland's future strategy to tackle littering and flytipping.