Litter strategy - five years on: review

Appendix 2: Activities Carried Out Under the Strategy

The following is a list of many of the activities that have been carried out at a national level under each of the interventions, as a result of the strategy, over the past five years. The activities below only reflect activities that were carried out prior to the publication of this review in November 2019.

Communication

What the National Litter Strategy said

The goal is to communicate effectively and accessibly about litter, with consistent messages that engage the public and motivate behaviour change.

We ask delivery partners to enhance their communications activities and to make it clear why people should take personal responsibility for their waste.

We will:

• Run a national behaviour-change marketing campaign during 2014 and build on the delivery partners' communication toolkit
• Develop innovative and creative approaches to communication, such as using art, to highlight the effect of litter and flytipping on people and wildlife.
• Continue to promote re-use and repair through Revolve - the reuse organisations' quality standard.
• Continue to expand and promote the Recycle for Scotland initiative.
• Review the Dumb Dumpers website and public reporting mechanism to support people who wish to take action against flytipping.

What's been delivered as a result of the strategy

• Scottish Government ran a national campaign 'Dirty Little Secret' in summer 2014. This encouraged and motivated people to stop littering as their peers found it socially unacceptable, and people who litter risk an £80 fixed penalty. Development was supported by a stakeholder steering group.
• Scottish Government introduced a charge on single-use carrier bags and through Zero Waste Scotland ran a campaign in October 2014 to support the introduction of the charge. This raised awareness of the charge and highlighted that reusing bags helps to prevent litter.
• Zero Waste Scotland created the Litter Knowledge Network which pulls together tools, materials and good practice examples. It also includes targeted and motivating messages within its litter prevention communication toolkit.
• A Recycling on the Go communication toolkit was developed by Zero Waste Scotland and promoted via stakeholder events.
• Zero Waste Scotland created a free toolkit to assist partners in developing interventions to help prevent flytipping in their local area.
• Zero Waste Scotland updated the Dumb Dumpers initiative in 2016.

Education

What the National Litter Strategy said

Children and young people should have the opportunity to understand the importance of environmental quality, and the benefits of resource efficiency.

• We will work with council education services and organisations such as Education Scotland and Young Scot to develop initiatives and resources that encourage young people to do the right thing with waste. We encourage delivery partners to contribute to the development of materials and to include these within their existing education projects. The approach will explore how to build on or complement existing environmental and sustainability education initiatives, including EcoSchools and Learning for Sustainability (LFS).

What's been delivered as a result of the strategy

• In 2016/17 a review was undertaken to determine any requirement for new Learning for Sustainability curriculum-linked education resources for secondary schools. The review identified a strong need and an appetite was demonstrated by schools/teachers for a curriculum linked approach. A resource, #GetLitterLiterate, was created by Zero Waste Scotland with the support of a specialist educational consultancy and overseen by a steering group.
• Zero Waste Scotland's litter knowledge network includes new advice about working with schools to prevent litter.
• Young Scot prepared a Generation Change litter report (2017) which identified young people's proposed solutions to litter. These are reflected in programme initiatives such as targeted messaging, infrastructure guidance and education.

Local Community Action

What the National Litter Strategy said

Empowered local communities can take greater ownership of the quality of their local environments.

Communities can take preventative action such as building fences to restrict access to flytipping sites, or work with local businesses to educate their customers.

We will discuss opportunities with delivery partners, particularly those in the third sector. We expect this will include:

• Support for local communities to clean up and prevent litter/flytipping problems on land which others are not already taking responsibility for. We will pilot an incentivised community clean up scheme to tackle litter black spots.
• Enabling participation in prevention and community clean up activity through dialogue with equality groups.
• Pilot action to address issues particular to rural communities, such as litter on remote beaches or abandoned vehicles.

We will encourage delivery partners to seek the input of the third sector and local communities when developing their delivery plans.

What's been delivered as a result of the strategy

• Zero Waste Scotland's new Litter Knowledge Network is a detailed online resource of best practice on litter and flytipping prevention, with a range of resources to help stakeholders apply the knowledge in their local circumstances.
• Zero Waste Scotland's Litter Prevention Action Plans provides support to communities, local authorities and businesses who wish to prevent local litter problems.
• Through Zero Waste Scotland, the Scottish Government committed £150k, (£75k in each of 2015-16 and 2016-17) to the Clean Up Scotland campaign delivered by Keep Scotland Beautiful.
• Partner organisations provided support for community litter events, such as the Angus Litter Summit, which took place in Autumn 2017.
• Funding of the three Zero Waste Towns projects, allowed local action to take place, including:
  • Zero Waste Leith's work to achieve 'cleaner, greener streets'
  • Zero Waste Edinburgh's project to repurpose unwanted materials from student residences.
• Keep Scotland Beautiful's roadside litter prevention campaign - Give Your Litter a Lift, take it home.
• Keep Scotland Beautiful has implemented Upstream Battle an award-winning campaign to change behaviour and prevent marine litter at source on the river Clyde. The campaign aims to raise awareness, gather data and inspire action up and down the Clyde valley.

Opportunities for Recycling

What the National Litter Strategy said

Litter can be turned into a resource for Scotland.

We want to make it easy for people to recycle in public places. We will work with our delivery partners to increase Recycle on the Go facilities and explore how to boost the quantity, quality and range of material recycled.

This will include:

• Support for innovation: working with organisations to explore how to recycle more items such as chewing gum.
• Update the Sustainable Events Guide to help event organisers to plan how they will help people to recycle. For example, providing mobile facilities.

What's been delivered as a result of the strategy

• In May 2020, the Scottish Parliament passed legislation to establish Scotland's Deposit Return Scheme, which will make it easier to recycle single-use drinks containers, which are commonly littered.
• The Sustainable Events Guide was updated by Zero Waste Scotland in 2015.
• A new events guide/checklist was produced by Zero Waste Scotland in 2016/17 specific to managing and preventing litter and waste at events.

Product Design

What the National Litter Strategy said

Packaging plays an important role in protecting products. We believe some product and packaging design can be developed in ways that reduce litter and help people to take personal responsibility for their waste.

We will:

• Provide a focus for business interests to redesign products and packaging to reduce littering or reduce its impact.
• Encourage customer loyalty schemes that reward people for resource efficiency, such as reusable coffee cups.
• Encourage packaging from sustainable sources which can be reused or recycled.

We will work with delivery partners including the

• Product Sustainability Forum.
• Courtauld signatories within the food and drink sector.
• Packaging Recycling Group Scotland

What's been delivered as a result of the strategy

• Making Things Last (2016) updates and takes forward this action to prevent and reduce waste through design, reuse and recycling.
• The Scottish Government convened the Expert Panel on Environmental Charges and other Measures to examine what can be done to reduce waste and encourage reuse. The panel considered disposable cups in particular and recommended a campaign to encourage re-use, together with a charge for single use cups. The evidence for these recommendations included Keep Scotland Beautiful's Glasgow Cup Movement, started in 2018. A project run by Zero Waste Scotland and NHS Scotland at University Crosshouse Hospital in Ayrshire, trialled re-usable and recyclable cups in their staff canteen.
• The Scottish Government is a signatory of the Courtauld Commitment 2025 which aims to make food and drinks consumption more sustainable, and the UK Plastics Pact, which aims to eliminate the eight most problematic single-use plastic items.
• Zero Waste Scotland and the National Bed Federation are working together on research aiming to drive up the reuse and recycling of mattress components, meaning that they will be less likely to be flytipped in the future

Service Design

What the National Litter Strategy said

Business procedures, staff training and customer engagement can encourage personal responsibility for disposal of waste.

We will work with businesses, local authorities and others to:

• Encourage services and processes that minimise waste, such as the collection of old products for reuse, repair and/or recycling.
• Improve staff training and communications and make it easier for people to report litter and flytipping problems.
• Encourage more reuse and repair, and business models which could help reduce the flytipping of domestic products, such as leasing products and services.
• Encourage businesses to collaborate when commissioning waste collection services in order to ensure their bins are not contributing to litter problems.

We will support businesses through the communications toolkit. Businesses which are committed to sustainable growth, including efforts to tackle litter and flytipping, can receive recognition for their efforts through a nationwide scheme: the Resource Efficiency Pledge.

What's been delivered as a result of the strategy

• Making Things Last updates (covered under product design).
• On 20 October 2014, Scottish Government passed legislation meaning that all retailers must charge at least 5p for each single use carrier bag. This resulted in a reduction of single use carrier bag usage by around 80%.
• The Dumb Dumpers public reporting service was reviewed in 2014/15 where the conclusion was that there was an appetite for it to remain and that it was a useful tool for reporting.
• The introduction of the new Litter Monitoring System means that both litter and Flytipping data for all registered bodies are stored on the same site. This means that geographical and historical data is easier to access and patterns and hotspots are easier to detect.
• The launch of the #TrialPeriod campaign, aimed at reducing the 428 million single-use period products disposed of in Scotland each year.

Guidance Review

What the National Litter Strategy said

The Scottish Government provides formal guidance to organisations on what their roles and responsibilities are in relation to litter and flytipping.

We will review the Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse (Scotland) 2006 (COPLAR) and work with delivery partners to develop effective approaches to delivery that reflect the priorities in this strategy and:

• Clarify organisations' responsibilities.
• Are consistent with Recycle on the Go guidance and the duty of care requirements around the Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012.
• Support more effective cleanliness standards, including tackling litter in trees, bushes and watercourses, and on public, private, urban and rural land.
• Support a proactive approach to identifying litter problems such as preventing accidental and wind-blown litter during recycling collections.
• Identify scenarios for particular action such as special events or extreme weather.
• Highlight how to make smarter use of existing powers - including planning and licensing.
• Support joint working and shared resources such as supporting collaboration with local communities, local authorities, businesses and land managers.
• Support decisions about litter/Recycle on the Go bin design, location and servicing.
• Showcase best practice in litter prevention and management (including the development of delivery or action plans).

We will:

• Work with stakeholders to develop the review, possibly including interim guidance.
• Convene a working group to consider what the guidance should include in relation to littering by young people under 16.
• Pilot interventions that support delivery including action to address accidental/wind-blown litter.
• Consider how to support training so that staff understand their roles in relation to the guidance.

What's been delivered as a result of the strategy

• CoPLAR 2006 has been reviewed and replaced with the Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse (Scotland 2018)
• CoPLAR 2018 provides guidance to relevant bodies on how to meet their statutory responsibilities. It promotes a preventative approach towards litter and flytipping, freeing up money for other public services.
• All 32 local authorities and relevant bodies were engaged in the process of updating CoPLAR (2018)
• Zero Waste Scotland created the Litter Knowledge Network which pulls together tools, materials and good practice examples
• The Household Recycling Code of Practice helped ensure waste collection services are designed in a way so as to avoid accidental spillage or 'wind-blown' waste from collection containers or vehicles and to help ensure there is a synergy between all the operational functions responsible for waste, cleansing and flytipping.
• The Effective Enforcement Checklist and videos were compiled by Zero Waste Scotland in collaboration with Community Safety Glasgow to provide recommendations on the knowledge, training and competencies required for effective enforcement

Future Funding and Support

What the National Litter Strategy said

We will provide funding and/or advice for projects which aim to reduce litter and flytipping through information, infrastructure and enforcement interventions.

We will:

• Fund pilot projects to trial and evaluate interventions with potential for wider application.
• Explore how effective procurement (for example of infrastructure or services) can reduce costs for delivery partners.
• Signpost organisations to other funding sources.

It will be a condition of Zero Waste Scotland's litter, flytipping and Recycle on the Go funding that the recipient land managers/businesses commit to including litter and flytipping in delivery plans.

What's been delivered as a result of the strategy

• Through Zero Waste Scotland, the Scottish Government provided around £1.5m of funding between 2014 and 2015 to local authorities, community groups and organisations to tackle litter. This funding included:
  • Recycling on the Go 2014/15
  • Community Action Fund 2014/15
  • Litter Prevention Fund 2015/16 and 2016/17
  • Communications fund 2016/17
  • Individual projects (Glasgow enforcement) 2017/18
• Through Zero Waste Scotland, Scottish Government committed £150k, £75k in each of 2015-16 and 2016-17, to the Clean Up Scotland campaign delivered by Keep Scotland Beautiful. This is in addition to £500,000 provided since 2013.
• In 2018, Scottish Government held the first Marine Summit in Oban and pledged £500,000 to help tackle plastic pollution.

Research and Monitoring

What the National Litter Strategy said

Effective information gathering and analysis means that everyone can understand which measures work most effectively, and will help to prioritise and develop targeted interventions accordingly.

We will continue to develop an evidence-based approach based on problem materials. This will include: where issues occur, why, and how these might be prevented. We will also develop an approach to quantifying the scale of problems, and the impacts of actions to tackle them.

We will work with delivery partners to develop this further. This will:

• Define the outcomes more precisely and the best way to track them - taking account of quality: what matters most to the public, the impact on behaviour, the environment and the quantity of litter and flytipped material.
• Establish baselines and key performance indicators for the strategy and for specific interventions and pilots.

We will take into account the evidence and monitoring systems that already exist.

We will review the strategy in 2016/17 and 2020.

What's been delivered as a result of the strategy

• Scottish Government continue to monitor public perceptions of litter through the annual Scottish Household Survey.
• Through Zero Waste Scotland, Scottish Government has published a number of pieces of research, including:
  • Public perceptions & concerns (2015)
  • Good practice to reduce waste crime (2015)
  • Recycle & Reward pilots report (2015)
  • Short survey of public attitudes and behaviours in relation to litter and flytipping (2016)
  • Evidence review of Flytipping behaviour (2017)
• Zero Waste Scotland, developed a new litter monitoring system in partnership with local authorities, APSE, CoSLA, the Improvement Service and Keep Scotland Beautiful. This new system will provide:
  • Consistency in approach using the metrics outlined in CoPLAR across a large number and range of land managers in Scotland;
  • Objective methods of assigning cleanliness grades to areas using a count of items;
  • Collection of accurate information;
  • Useful data to inform planning and evaluation of litter prevention activities at both local and national levels.
• Through their annual Great British Beach Clean, the Marine Conservation Society collected data items commonly littered on Scotland's beaches, helping to influence policy and legislation.

Flytipping

What the National Litter Strategy said

There are already strong enforcement disincentives for flytippers, including the recent increase in fixed penalties and new SEPA enforcement sanctions. Most of the actions in this strategy will have an impact on flytipping as well as litter.

Furthermore, the current 'FlyMapper' pilot project aims to improve understanding of the nature, scale and geographical distribution of Flytipping incidents on public and private land.

Flytipping is understood to be a deliberate act which may be motivated by the desire to avoid waste disposal or recycling costs. Action to improve our understanding of the factors which contribute to flytipping behaviour will allow us to bring forward further, better-informed, interventions in the future.

What's been delivered as a result of the strategy

• Research, including: Evidence review of Flytipping behaviour (2017)
• Zero Waste Scotland and the National Bed Federation are working together on research aiming to drive up the reuse and recycling of mattress components, meaning that they will be less likely to be flytipped in the future
• Zero Waste Scotland is a member of the Scottish Partnership Against Rural Crime along and leads on the strand focussing on Flytipping prevention.
• Zero Waste Scotland, along with Police Scotland, Keep Scotland Beautiful and the Litter Managers' Network are currently reviewing Dumb Dumpers.
• The new Littering Monitoring System allows landowners to record Flytipping, in order that a national picture can be developed to understand geographical and temporal patterns, and to inform prevention measures and partnership working.
• New fixed penalty powers granted to SEPA in 2015 are used, in a targeted way, to tackle low-level noncompliance with waste legislation, including flytipping.
• Scottish Government's consultation on proposals for a Circular Economy Bill^[4] included a provision for new powers to seize vehicles involved in waste crime, including flytipping.
• Zero Waste Scotland has created a free toolkit to assist partners in developing interventions to help prevent Flytipping in their local area.

Strengthen the Enforcement System

What the National Litter Strategy said

We want to build on our recent actions to boost the effectiveness of enforcement as a deterrent.

We will look for a suitable opportunity to legislate to remove barriers to enforcement in littering from vehicles.

Consultation on the strategy showed general support for further legislation, which we will discuss with key agencies including Police Scotland, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and local authorities:

• Waste carriers licensing and duty of care requirements.
• Making it easier for the police to issue fixed penalties.
• Making best use of Litter Control Areas and Street Litter Control Notices.
• A mechanism for litter practitioners to intervene when printed material, such as flyers, creates litter problems.
• Adjusting fixed penalty provisions to incentivise prompt payment.

We will continue to encourage organisations with enforcement powers to use them. We will also discuss with other public bodies whether they would benefit from having the power to issue fixed penalties for litter and flytipping.

What's been delivered as a result of the strategy

• Scottish Government continues to work with our enforcement partners to strengthen the deterrent effect of enforcement legislation.
• New fixed penalty powers granted to SEPA in 2015 are used, in a targeted way, to tackle low-level noncompliance with waste legislation, including flytipping.
• Scottish Government's consultation on proposals for a Circular Economy^[3] Bill), included: a new enabling power that would allow a fixed penalty notice to be issued to the registered keeper of a vehicle when a littering offence has been committed from that vehicle. This would both increase the deterrent effect and the options available to enforcement officers in tackling roadside littering.

Enforcement Staff Training

What the National Litter Strategy said

Supporting enforcement staff to become confident and proficient in their understanding of legislation and application of correct procedures will lead to more effective delivery that:

• Boosts the quality of fixed penalties issued and their payment rate.
• Provides the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service with the information it needs to consider further action when penalties are unpaid.

We will develop an employers' guide to the content and standards they should specify when commissioning training. It will include:

• What processes and materials can help (including smart technology).
• How and when to target enforcement on black spots.
• How best to communicate enforcement action.

We will work with local authorities and other statutory bodies to review current approaches, and develop collaborative projects that help us better understand the impact of enforcement practices - including their deterrent effect. This will help inform effective models and guidance which will support delivery.

What's been delivered as a result of the strategy

• Scottish Government continue to encourage bodies with enforcement powers to use them.
• Zero Waste Scotland's Litter Prevention Action Plans support local authorities that wish to target enforcement in litter hotspots
• The Effective Enforcement Checklist and videos were compiled by Zero Waste Scotland in collaboration with Community Safety Glasgow to provide recommendations on the knowledge, training and competencies required for effective enforcement
• The Enforcement Sub-group of the Litter Managers' Network continues to meet regularly and includes Zero Waste Scotland and Keep Scotland Beautiful staff to help provide support.