Ensuring cleaner streets is really part of our priority to improve the quality of our environment, but we have decided to separate it off as it is such a major issue in its own right. What follows is part of West Ealing Neigbours' contribution to seeking a long-term solution to this issue.

This paper with ideas for an education campaign to help combat the fly-tipping and street rubbish problem was written by David Highton for Ealing Council, at their request, in his role as a volunteer Streetwatcher and additional ideas have been contributed by other members of West Ealing Neighbours.  We will report back on any developments that arise from these ideas.

Education

Any campaign needs to have a range of elements and methods to reach different groups of residents within any area.  It also needs to have a place in the school curriculum, where there is the opportunity to demonstrate the importance of respecting our neighbours and our environment to all children as they grow up and develop their values.  Incorporating this into the curriculum as part of PHSE or Citizenship is an important task but one beyond the scope of this brief ideas paper.

Coming to adults, we know that there will be residents who know what to do and do it; others will know and ignore because they are confident they will not be stopped or challenged; some will just take a chance every now and then and get rid of some unwanted goods and hope they get away with it; whilst some will genuinely not know how to dispose of rubbish and unwanted items and may well live their lives by a set of cultural values which give a different perspective on the whole issue. All of these groups, and others, will require different messages and different means of delivering these messages.

The ideas below will not work for everyone on all occasions.  They are intended only as a starting point.  We will need the advice of others to.  Nevertheless, here are some ideas to start the discussion: 

1. Create a few simple consistent messages

A few simple and memorable messages used regularly should help in getting the message over.  The fly-tipping poster from Encams - Don't Turn A Blind Eye with the Council's fly-tipping hotline number could be one.  Something like ‘The streets belong to you, not the fly-tippers' might work as might a group photo showing a diverse range of residents with a message such as ‘ Respect your neighbours and your neighbourhood - keep the streets clean '. Also, using the Encams (Keep Britain Tidy campaign) idea of rats, something like 'Don't let the rats run the streets.  Stop the fly-tippers.  Call 020....'

2. Recruit and train more Streetwatchers

Recruiting more Street watchers is probably the most effective overall strategy to tackle fly-tipping, graffiti etc.  I feel we need to establish a policy of zero tolerance of these problems and speedy reporting by Streetwatchers and equally speedy clearance and enforcement are vital.   

3. Identify and tackle hotspots

Most Streetwatchers will know where their fly-tipping hotspots are.  I suggest we first concentrate our efforts in and around these by:

• Putting up street signs as already commissioned
• Leafleting the nearby streets with a simple message about dealing with rubbish and the penalties for fly-tipping.  This leaflet will need to be available in key languages relevant to the area
• Finding out, for example, which are the main shops, clubs, places of worship an ethnic group uses and talk to the owners, priests etc about how to disseminate the educational information.  Maybe there could be special carrier bags with information in, for example, Polish.  There could be 10 key messages and one message per bag so it's kept very simple.
• Maybe we could pilot a ‘Welcome to Ealing/Hanwell etc' pack with simple, basic information about how key services and facilities work(doctors, dentists, rubbish collection etc)which could be distributed through these shops, clubs etc
• Explore any English-produced minority language newspapers with the aim of encouraging the papers to run a campaign
• Could there be a way of having moveable notice boards in various languages for hot spots?  Say, temporary notices that can be fixed to lamp posts and be there for a couple of weeks and then moved elsewhere?
• Issue simple report forms to residents with details of problem and how to report to Council.  The idea is to give residents some sense of control over their streets - the feeling that, yes, they can do something even if they don't want to become a Streetwatcher
• Find out from offenders what they look for in a site and why they do it and use it to stop others
• Notices/promotional leaflets at DIY stores, builders' merchants, furniture stores because some of the fly-tips certainly look to be as a result of people clearing out what's in their flat to make way for new items.

4. Seek out local and relevant media partners

In Southall, for example, find out which are the popular radio stations and see if they can be persuaded to run an education campaign

5. Work with letting agents, estate agents

Many of the flats are let by agencies.  Can we design a simple information pack that agents can give to all their clients.  I guess what would be ideal is a voluntary code whereby they agree to do this - can the Council give any incentive in return? The pack could also be given to people who buy as well. [This could be the same ‘Welcome'pack as mentioned above]

6. Try out report forms

Mentioned above, these could be more widely distributed than just around hotspots.  These would allow people to log the essential details and report them, giving some sense of power to residents.

7. Proper investigation and enforcement

This is the biggest stick the Council has and without enforcement the education work will never be fully effective.  The fear of being found out is powerful and will act as a deterrent once residents realise each incident is investigated.  I suspect that even if it's impossible to find out who is responsible the very act of investigation will act as some level of deterrent.  Knock on a few and I suspect word of mouth will get the message out that fly-tipping etc is being taken seriously.

8. Publish details of convictions

Another stick item.  It's well worth finding a way of getting the message out that people are prosecuted and ‘named and shamed'. So, these convictions could be publicised in the Around Ealing monthly magazine.  Publishing CCTV stills with wanted faces, cars, which has been tried recently, may prove effective.

9. Design and pilot simple give away items with key information

The idea here is to try to design a way of conveying key information in a medium that residents might just keep and put somewhere to remind them.  So, maybe it needs to have more than just information about fly-tipping.  It could have a range of key phone numbers so, for example, it could have the contacts for the Ward-based Safer Neighbourhoods police, the main Council numbers, then information about how to dispose of unwanted items, details of Freecycle and so on.  Maybe this would make it something some residents will want to keep and that's easy to do as a fridge magnet.  I thought of a credit card type item but I'm not sure anyone would keep it or it would quickly get lost.  Perhaps a small calendar with a magnet on back would work better? 

Other Ideas

1. Introduce a version of ‘Waste Wise' for retail outlets

I came across Waste Wise on an Australian website

This needs more work but in essence it's a survey of a shop's waste and then an assessment of what can be recycled - cardboard, printer cartridges, wood, plastic etc.  An initial audit gives the baseline and then annual targets set and, in an ideal world, there would be an incentive (financial or otherwise - reduction in rates) for meeting the targets.  Part of the audit should be proper and timely disposal of non-recyclable rubbish and this could be monitored by random spot checks. 

Maybe this could be extended to supermarkets and other shops whereby they offered easy ways for shoppers to leave behind and recycle unwanted packaging as this is likely to become an increasingly important issue.

2. Pilot a website for Streetwatchers to report problems

This is an idea taken from the borough of Lewisham's site whereby residents can take and send in photos of fly-tips, graffiti etc and they go up on Lewisham's site. The Council then adds a comment about when the problem will be cleared.  This makes the whole issue very visible to anyone choosing to look and should give encouragement to residents to report problems as they can see what action will be taken and by when.  It seems a good accountability measure.

West Ealing Neighbours has its own version of this idea in our Gallery where we take a photo of fly-tips put it up with details of where and when it was reported to the Council and then add on when it was cleared.

Ealing could look at the Lewisham scheme and see if its Council view it as a success.  If so, maybe it could start up its own version whereby Streetwatchers send in their photos.

3. Pilot alternative ways for residents to dispose of unwanted goods

Two ideas here:           

• In a selected trial area place skips at appropriate places for 24 hours to allow residents to dispose of unwanted items.  If they can be separated into rubble, wood etc for some recycling even better.  At the same time, information about this initiative would need to be given to local residents, maybe through leaflet drops, Steetwatchers and local papers.  This could be abused by unscrupulous people as a way of disposing of  industrial and builders rubbish but  maybe Streetwatchers could help ‘police' these skips or ask other nearby residents to help out on the particular day.  
  
• Again, in a selected trial area, offer a free collection service for unwanted goods once a month.  Give residents special signs/labels to go on goods and ask residents to put unwanted goods in their front garden or for flats in some accessible area.  As above, the initiative would need to be properly publicised.- to those in the selected area.

4. Tackling the fast-food tidal mark

One noticeable feature of living close to a high street, in this case the Uxbridge Road, is the fast-food tidal mark phenomenon whereby if you live within about 150 metres of the high street where there are fast-food shops, then you will suffer an additional level of street litter which consists almost entirely of food and drink detritus - glass bottles, plastic bottles, cans, burger boxes and so on.  It takes people the 150 metres or so to consume their food and drink and then throw away the wrappers and containers they bought it in.  

A few thoughts:

• Raise a letter charge on all shops selling food after a set time, say, 9pm to help pay for the cost of additional street cleaning
• If the above is not possible, can one additional round of street cleaning a week take place on streets within the 150 metre zone?
• Find ways of encouraging shop owners to clean up any of their own items and dispose of them, not sweep it into the gutter

David Highton

22nd  October 2006