The environmental charity Hubbub has launched Neatstreets.org.uk a new website to help local authorities and other organisations combat litter using a range of tried and tested ideas.
Artwork for posters and bins, audience insights and ideas for litter interventions are among the free tools available on the site which is seemingly designed to guide organisations on how to deliver a successful litter campaign in their local area. In addition, McDonald’s has provided funding for five grants of £10,000 to be made available to councils, to help subsidise funding already in place to combat the issue.¹
Litter costs UK local authorities alone, £699 million per year – and that excludes spending by other authorities such as Highways England.² It continues to be a growing, nationwide issue, despite new research from Hubbub revealing that 62% of people feel angry when they see litter on the ground and two in five find it frustrating that there aren’t more bins or campaigns to tackle litter. ³
Hubbub hopes to address the problem through the new website which has been developed, drawing on the charity’s eight years of experience in delivering successful, strategic litter interventions in a range of environments.
Packed with ideas and tools to help others develop litter busting interventions, the website will share the successes and learnings from previous campaigns from Hubbub which include:
· Neat Streets – delivered in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole to tackle litter on beaches using drone technology and AI
· #InTheLoop – addressing on-the-go litter and recycling in high footfall areas in 16 cities across the UK
· Love Your Forest – using creative ways to reduce woodland litter in the Forest of Dean
· Ballot Bin – the world’s first customisable voting ashtray, proven to cut cigarette litter by up to 73%. There are now over 5,000 Ballot Bins in 43 countries, saving an estimated 15 million cigarette butts from being littered a year.
· Pick Your Side – innovating on the Ballot Bin, Pick Your Side trialled Hubbub’s most advanced bin to date, The Big Ballot Bin a solar-powered customisable voting bin. Tested in Manchester and Southampton, independent litter surveying by Ellipsis Earth showed that the bins also reduced food and drink litter within a 20m radius by 60% and 70% respectively.
Gavin Ellis, Director and Co-founder at Hubbub said: “We have a wealth of experience in tackling specific types of litter in very targeted environments and are delighted to share our learnings with organisations wanting to develop litter-busting initiatives in their local area. Equipped with public polling, audience insights and a library of creative assets and tools, we hope to provide inspiration for the best tactics to use and are thrilled to also offer funding to support this.”
Andrew Moys, Vice President for Impact at McDonald’s said: “We are proud of the difference we’ve had working with Hubbub in the communities we serve over the years. We’ve learned so much about what works and how we can make it easier for customers and members of the public to do the right thing, and we are pleased to be sharing all this knowledge through the NeatStreets website.”
The Neat Streets website and grant funding is being supported by McDonald’s, who has funded projects with Hubbub since 2017. Notably, McDonald’s funded the award-winning Neat Streets campaign in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, in partnership with Hubbub and Ellipsis Earth. The campaign used drone technology to identify problematic areas and target them with playful interventions, resulting in a 75% – 90% reduction of litter in these locations. You can find out more about the campaign by reading the impact report.
For more information on how to address litter in your local area, visit Neatstreets.org.uk
Notes
¹ Five grants of £10k are available for councils to apply for as long as they provide £5k of funding themselves
² Source: DEFRA
³ Polling conducted by Censuswide on behalf of Hubbub between 27.03.2024 – 03.04.2024. National representative survey sample of 3,000 respondents.
