Whether you live in a town, city or village, it’s likely that you have streets and rivers filled with litter, unless you are very fortunate. Obviously the onus is on each individual not to drop litter (and shops to not sell plastic packaging), but there are many ways that individuals, groups and councils can help to create litter-free communities. That usually starts with a mass zero-tolerance policy. By removing all existing litter (including litter that has been on the ground or in local streams for sometimes years), it creates a community placemaking pride, so it’s less likely that people will drop litter onto clean litter-free streets. Here is a simple list of things small businesses can do, to create litter-free communities:
Try to avoid handing out anything that could create litter. Most single-use plastic items are now banned, but don’t ‘use them up’ by handing them out and look into biodegradable pots for food etc. There are many good inventions these days like:
Rebowl & ReCup are two companies that let you buy reusable bowls and cups for takeaway food, then customers just return them when done, to get back their deposits. Also register with Refill to be a place where people can refill their reusable bottles with tap water.
Let people borrow a cloth bag (or brolly) if they forget theirs. Be inspired by zero waste shops that use tare systems to let people bring their own clean bottles and jars to fill up just what they need, so they pay for goods and not packaging.
Organise community recycling boxes with Terracycle. A few are free (sponsored by industry) but most boxes are £100 to £200, you could ask a business or council to sponsor this, or divide the cost between many people. This creates a one-off amnesty to get litter out of your town, which is then recycled into other goods. The boxes take difficult-to-recycle items, hence the cost. There are boxes for everything from mixed boxes for everything from party waste to plastic waste to cigarette waste and balloons.
One farmer had a wonderful idea that local councils could consider: having registration numbers printed on fast food receipts. So if people drop fast food litter out of car windows, they get a fine in the post, just like with speeding.
