Hansard

I thank my colleague Graeme Dey for securing this members’ business debate. It is clear that we all agree that Keep Scotland Beautiful is to be congratulated on the success of its annual national spring clean campaign and on its valuable contribution to our environment.

The growth in the number of volunteers who take part from 11,500 in 2007 to more than 117,000 this year is a fantastic achievement that we should celebrate. The Scottish Government has supported the national spring clean with £116,000 of funding from our delivery partner zero waste Scotland. The fact that the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment launched the 2012 national spring clean—in March, alongside schoolchildren in Portobello—reflects the value that is placed on the event.

Graeme Dey is right to highlight the issue. Few things can be as corrosive to our pride in our communities as the preponderance of litter on our streets and in our beautiful countryside. I identified with all the points that colleagues have made.

Littering and fly-tipping are problems that continue to blight many communities. In the Scottish household survey for 2011, 25 per cent of residents who responded agreed that litter was a serious problem for them. The fact that about one in 50 of the population officially participated in the 2012 national spring clean underlines the strength of that feeling. More than 75,500 of the participants were schoolchildren. Claudia Beamish was right to highlight the significance of eco-schools. Many schools have signed up to the international eco-schools programme, which encourages whole-school action for the environment and includes a mandatory topic on litter. That is important in relation to the education point that George Adam and others made. The Scottish Government funds Keep Scotland Beautiful to support that programme, in which Scotland is a world leader. Tomorrow, our 1,500th green flag will be officially awarded to Mearns Castle high school in East Renfrewshire.

Events such as the national spring clean are a great way not only of tackling litter head on and removing a blight from our streets, parks and lanes but of helping to raise public awareness. However, the litter that the national spring clean volunteers pick up should not be there in the first place. Graeme Dey and others, including Chic Brodie, were right to highlight that we need to change the culture. Littering is totally unacceptable and should be seen as such by all and not just by the majority of the public, whom I genuinely believe see it in that way.

During my local village’s litter pick this year for the floral gateway competition in the Borders, colleagues and I picked up litter from the verge of a local B-road. We passed a couple of cars that were filled with young men who were in their 20s. When we turned back along the same route a mere 10 minutes later, we found that three cigarette packets and a can of Coke had been left behind. That truly infuriated me, and my behaviour has probably never been closer to resembling that of Victor Meldrew—I think that I even said, “I don’t believe it.”

While children help to clear up litter, those who should know better are creating more of it. Tackling that point really matters. As well as being an unnecessary eyesore that can deter visitors and investors—others have made that point—litter can cause a risk to health. If valuable materials that could have been recycled are wasted, that is a loss to society.

I assure the Parliament that the Scottish Government is committed to tackling the problem and that I take the issue seriously. As Graeme Dey said, the Scottish Government has tasked zero waste Scotland with producing a state of the nation evidence report on litter. A steering group that involves Keep Scotland Beautiful is guiding research that is investigating the wider cost of litter to society, analysing litter enforcement trends and the effectiveness of current legislation, and considering how best to influence littering behaviour and successful approaches to tackling the problem. That report is due early next year and will provide a powerful basis for our approach to tackling littering, which is antisocial and damages our habitats.

In parallel with that work, zero waste Scotland has launched two new funds to help to address the problem further. It is funding a new £250,000 litter prevention innovation fund for local authorities, community groups, landowners and businesses that will support local innovative approaches to tackling and preventing litter. It is also repeating last year’s successful £75,000 fly-tipping small grants scheme, to help communities to tackle and prevent fly-tipping.

Those schemes can help local organisations to make a real difference to their environment. For example, last year, Friends of Possilpark Greenspace in Glasgow was awarded just over £5,000 to clear fly-tipping from the park, and the organisation re-landscaped the area to make it more inviting for the local community. Through studying the impacts of those grants, we hope to establish what works and does not work in the hope that we can learn something from that.

Zero waste Scotland has also made £500,000 available to support the roll-out of more recycle-on-the-go facilities throughout Scotland, along with guidance about how to make the most from installing those facilities in public places such as shopping centres and high streets. The new bins allow people to recycle while they are out and about, taking away the excuse that there is nowhere to put the waste and helping to turn problem litter into materials that can be used again. We are keen for the number of such facilities to be increased substantially.

Richard Lochhead wrote to all councils last month to highlight the opportunities and remind the councils of their enforcement powers to penalise people who litter. I encourage all councils and the police to make use of those powers to impose fixed-penalty fines of £50 for littering. It is vital that people understand that littering is unacceptable, antisocial and a criminal offence. I do not know about other members, but I have been shocked to hear people occasionally say that littering is in some way excusable because it helps to keep someone in a job. I have heard that uttered by members of the public, and it shows that attitudes must change.

Zero waste Scotland is also piloting deposit-return and reverse vending of drinks containers to see which approaches are most effective. It is hoped that, as well as driving recycling, giving containers a value will reduce the proportion of them that become litter.

Reflecting the harm that irresponsibly disposed-of carrier bags can do, we are consulting on proposals for retailers to charge 5p for a single-use carrier bag, with the proceeds going to charitable good causes. We want to encourage people to reuse their bags whenever possible, and experience from other areas shows that that measure is highly effective in reducing the number of bags that are used and left as litter.

Litter such as carrier bags causes problems not just on our land. Our forthcoming marine litter strategy will address the problems of marine and coastal litter, which have been referred to by Chic Brodie and others and which give cause to annual beach-clean events organised by bodies such as the Marine Conservation Society.

In the next couple of years, Scotland will host high-profile events such as the Ryder cup and the Commonwealth games. We all want the watching world to see Scotland—one of the world’s most beautiful countries—at its very best. We will continue to work with zero waste Scotland, Keep Scotland Beautiful and others to tackle litter, to deliver a cleaner, greener Scotland and to keep Scotland beautiful.

Meeting closed at 17:32.