Launching the fund at the weekend (24 August), environment minister Therese Coffey announced that almost £500,000 will be awarded to community projects to tackle the ‘blight’ of littering.
The Litter Innovation Fund will support local areas to reduce littering by enabling local authorities, community groups, charities, educational institutions, and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to apply for funding towards ‘innovative and creative solutions’ to the problem.
Innovation
According to Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the money will support the development of new innovation and approaches for tacking litter, from behavioural research for better positioned bins and recycling points – so that more people throw their rubbish away – to digital technology. This includes apps and ‘smart-bins’ that can text alerts to rubbish collectors when they are full.
Dr Coffey, said: “Tackling the litter that blights streets across our country is an important part of our drive to be the first generation to leave our environment in a better state than we found it.
“The Litter Innovation Fund offers a great opportunity for the most creative solutions to littering to receive funding and for us all to learn new ways of how to stop littering happening.”
Communities minister Marcus Jones, added: “Many areas are similarly keen to tackle litter locally by encouraging their communities to bin their rubbish properly rather than littering their streets and green spaces.
Litter Strategy
“We are looking to support the most creative plans with a funding boost from the Litter Innovation Fund.”
Welcoming the fund’s launch, Keep Britain Tidy chief executive Allison Ogden-Newton, said: “Innovation is vital if we are to change the behaviour of the minority of people who still think it is okay to drop their rubbish on the ground for someone else to pick up.”
The Litter Innovation Fund was set up as part of the Government’s Litter Strategy for England which was launched in April 2017.
“The Litter Innovation Fund offers a great opportunity for the most creative solutions to littering to receive funding and for us all to learn new ways of how to stop littering happening.”
Therese Coffey
DEFRA
In the Litter Strategy, the Government said that decisions made by central and local government in relation to wider resource efficiency and waste management can have a ‘significant impact’ on litter and littering.
LGA
In response to DEFRA’s announcement of the new Litter Innovation Fund, Cllr Martin Tett, the Local Government Authority’s (LGA) environment spokesman said: “This new money will be a boost to councils who are trying to find new and innovative ways of tackling litter in their local area.
“Litter and fly-tipping costs council taxpayers around £1 billion a year. We would now urge Government to build further on this encouraging step and hand councils the powers they need to rid communities of litter.”
All projects, said Defra, will be measured and evaluated to assess their effectiveness and the most successful could be rolled out more widely.
The application bidding process opened on 25 August and will run until 17 November 2017.
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