Litter fines encourage Swansea residents to keep city clean

More than 6,000 litter penalties have been issued to people throwing litter on the ground in Swansea.

Swansea Council drafted in an external enforcement team in September 2013 to work alongside its own litter enforcement, in a bid to crack down on litter-related problems in the city.

Since then the team has issued 6,800 fixed penalty notices to anyone seen dropping litter on the ground instead of using a bin.

The work has been included as part of a city-wide Tidy Swansea campaign which aims to encourage residents to help the council keep the city clean and tidy.

Fines have been issued for everything from dropping food, empty drinks cans and cigarette ends to dog fouling.

David Hopkins, Cabinet Member for Environment & Transportation, said: “The litter enforcement scheme has been a huge success and led to a much cleaner city in terms of litter on the ground.

“The addition of an external enforcement team to complement our own enforcement teams means we can have more impact in the city and carry out the work residents have asked us to do.

“Bringing in an external team also enables us to direct other resources to other litter related issued such as fly tipping.”

In June 2015, the council also approved plans to extend the contract with the external enforcement company to operate for a further two years.

Cllr Hopkins added: “It has made a lot of sense to continue our work to tackle litter. The public certainly responded positively to the action by doing the right thing and using bins. Our own litter collection teams are reporting the need to empty bins more frequently because they are filling up fast.”