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Litter on the street

Street cleaning and litter picking of items such as cigarette butts, crisp packets, tin cans, chocolate wrappers, newspapers and fast food cartons take place throughout the year on our streets and within parks and play areas.

We litter pick as part of a schedule in highly used areas, such as shopping centres. During the spring and summer months, we litter pick public open spaces so that we can safely cut the grass. The town centre has its own maintenance team which operates on a different cleaning schedule.

How you can help keep your streets clean

  • Put your litter and chewing gum in the bin – don’t litter, it’s a criminal offence
  • Take your household rubbish and recycling to a community recycling centre
  • Get a trade waste contract for your business 
  • Clean up after your dog 
  • Don’t put up posters – this is called flyposting, it's untidy and illegal 
  • Don’t park where you want us to clean!

Littering is a Criminal Offence

It's a criminal offence to drop any materials associated with smoking, drinking, eating or anything else onto roads and streets. This includes dropping or throwing litter onto private land and land covered by water. The same applies to dropping litter from a vehicle.

Fly-tipping or overflowing bin?

Could the rubbish you've seen be fly-tipping or an overflowing bin?

Fly-tipping

Fly-tipping is the illegal dumping of larger 'rubbish' items - from a single bin bag to a sofa or any other large bulky item.

Overflowing bin

This is a bin which is full and rubbish has been left around it. You can report a bin like this to us online.

Littering on private land

If the fly-tipping is on private land or land owned by housing associations, supermarkets or car parks we are unable to remove it. The owner of the land would need to do this and you should contact them. You can search who owns a piece of land or property by visiting gov.uk

Road sweeping

You can find out more on our road sweeping page.