Edinburgh council doubling street cleaners for festival season

The City of Edinburgh Council has more than doubled the number of street cleaners to tackle litter during the cities festival season.

Forty additional staff will join the core team of 37 city centre street cleansing operatives in August, to help manage extra demand over the busy summer period.

Crews will work around the clock, covering 180km of Capital streets to clear litter, service bins and uplift fly-tipping.

They are working 24/7 to help cope with the stresses brought by the city's population doubling during August.

Transport and Environment Convener, Councillor Lesley Macinnes, said: “Festival time is upon us again and we're getting ready to welcome hundreds of thousands of visitors from Scotland and the rest of the world to explore and enjoy our wonderful city.

"With this extra influx of people, though, comes a huge added pressure on our resources, which is why we're bolstering our street cleansing squad for August.

"We're also unveiling some eye-rollingly lame jokes on around 30 litter bins in the busiest Fringe venue areas.

"These jokes are intended to raise a laugh, but they make a more serious point about the fact we all have our part to play in keeping Edinburgh looking her beautiful best. As the vinyls say, we'll bin our bad jokes if people bin their litter!"

Day time ‘barrow beat’ staff will be assisted by a night services crew, on hand to service litter bins waste near pubs, clubs and fast food shops.

Environmental wardens will focus on particularly busy periods, discouraging litter-dropping and fly-tipping, working alongside the Waste Compliance Team to enforce against any trade waste infringements by businesses.

Edinburgh's Festival Fringe officially kicks off this Friday 2nd August.

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• edinburgh festival fringe
• Environment
• litter