Call for Plymouth drive-throughs to help tackle roadside litter 'disgrace'
Plymouth City Council is to ask fast-food restaurants and takeaways to do more to tackle litter across the city
Plymouth City Council is to ask fast-food restaurants and takeaways to do more to tackle litter across the city.
One idea put forward during a discussion was for drive-through staff to add car registration numbers to packaging as a deterrent to customers leaving litter.
Councillors heard that boxes and cups had been seen strewn along roadsides throughout the city during the pandemic.
The city council backed a call from the Conservative group to write to restaurants asking for extra help to tackle the problem such as litter-picks and bigger bins.
They will also be asked to investigate “possible deterrents” to encourage customers to dispose of waste properly.
Last week the council launched night-time litter collection patrols on the A38 last week in response to public concerns about the stretch through Plymouth.
Cllr Maddi Bridgeman, the shadow Cabinet member for environment, told councillors she had counted 21 Costa Coffee Cups, many with lids, when she was stopped at the traffic lights at Leigham roundabout last week.
The Conservative councillor said she had seen food packaging, cups and straws including from McDonald’s and KFC along Novorossiysk Road, and described the litter along the A38 Parkway as “a disgrace”.
The councillor said: “This isn’t just rubbish that’s flown from flat-bed lorries, it’s takeaway containers and cups.”
She said she had requested through the Plastic Task Force to ask fast-food staff to write vehicle registration numbers on food containers.
That would be an incentive for “people to think twice about where they throw their litter” and take it home instead.
Cllr Bridgeman said: “With the right measures in place, frequent offenders could potentially face prosecution.”
The idea to add car details to packaging was backed by Cllr Terri Beer, who said it “might be more effective in catching litterers.”
The Conservative said: “We live in a society which seems to have a low civic pride at the moment, or accountability, and to assume or expect that somebody will clean up your rubbish that has been thrown away.”
Cllr Bridgeman and others praised the work of the Clean Our Patch volunteers. Councillors heard that volunteers in Estover and Leigham collected 30 bags in 48 hours, and 97 bags were filled at Coypool and Marsh Mills. Cllr Glen Jordan, who represents Plympton Chaddlewood, said more than 600 bags had been collected in six weeks since January in the area.
Labour’s Cabinet member for community safety Sally Haydon said the council worked with businesses on waste control, and had powers to tackle litter problems associated with individual premises.
The Labour councillor said: “Individuals are responsible for how they dispose of their own waste, but we accept that businesses have a responsibility too.”
Cabinet member for the environment Sue Dann said ahead of coming out of lockdown, the Plymouth Waterfront Partnership had asked businesses to take responsibility for their waste and to increase collections.
Cllr Dann said the council had invested in 100 new large double bins across the city and waterfront, and it would be re-running the ‘Don’t be a Tosser’ campaign, encouraging people to dispose of litter properly. “We need to educate people in how they dispose of their rubbish,” she told the meeting.
The Cabinet member said the city’s Plastic Task Force was already working with partners such as Environment Plymouth, and there was a large project under way called Preventing Plastic Pollution, working with businesses on how to reduce plastic waste.
Cllr Dann said the Government needed to “pull its finger out”, as the focus of its litter strategy was to make producers more responsible for environmental harm, but it had not provided local authorities with legal powers for enforcement.
She said writing to businesses was a “great idea” to talk about their responsibilities in managing the litter they create, and about reducing the amount of waste.
Cllr Dann said: “We definitely will be working with partners, and we definitely will be writing to businesses to encourage them to be more socially responsible about the litter that they produce.”
The Conservative motion was approved with cross-party support at the meeting of the full council on Monday.