feature: Picking up our streets
19 November 2007
A new dedicated litter picking service has now been introduced by Haringey Council as it steps up its drive to create a greener and cleaner borough.
Litter breeds litter, and dirt breeds dirt. All of us have walked down streets where wrappers, cans and chewing gum have been dropped on the pavement every few yards. And once littering starts, more people tend to drop rubbish rather than put it in a bin.
Not only does this make streets deeply unattractive, it can also affect people’s feelings about where they live. Haringey Council is now stepping up its efforts to tackle this problem, and has just launched a radical new cleaning service in those parts of the borough that suffer most from litter. The initiative – part of the council’s Better Haringey environmental improvement campaign – means five of the borough’s wards are now being cleaned not once, but twice each week.
First a team of dedicated litter pickers make their way around every road in these wards – Harringay, Bounds Green, Seven Sisters, St Ann’s and White Hart Lane. In addition a team of street sweepers continues to rid these roads – and every street across the borough – of dust, dirt, leaves and any remaining small pieces of litter. Already the new scheme has led to major improvements to the official litter figures for these wards, and the council hopes in time to roll the service out across the borough. Cabinet member for environment and conservation, Cllr Brian Haley, said:
“The Better Haringey programme has made a huge difference to the borough’s environment since its launch four years ago. But we know there’s much more to be done.
“We know that litter is one of our residents’ main concerns, and the new litter picking service represents a major new drive to continue to improve the state of our streets.
|Back to top“But this isn’t just a council issue. I would urge residents to take pride in where they live and make use of the hundreds of new bins we have installed across the borough. “Our ultimate aim is to make our streets spotless, but we can only achieve this if people stop dropping litter and chewing gum on the pavement.”
Butting out
Traders and residents in Green Lanes have been warned there are no ifs and no butts when it comes to cigarette litter. Haringey Council is piloting new ‘cigarette bins’ in the road to tackle extra littering following the introduction of the smoking ban. The bins will be rolled out to other parts of the borough if the trial is successful.
Their launch came during the borough’s biggest ever week-long cleaning blitz – part of Haringey’s year-long Clean Sweep campaign – which saw a major clean-up of St Ann’s and Harringay wards. Activities included a major litter pick in Duckett’s Common, outside Turnpike Lane tube station, as well as anti-dog fouling patrols on Harringay Passage, replanting of plant beds in the Ladder roads, and the removal of street clutter in the two wards.
Cabinet member for enforcement and safer communities, Cllr Nilgun Canver, said:
“To create a cleaner, greener and safer Haringey, we must firstly ensure we provide the best possible facilities for our residents and businesses. That’s why we’re trialing the new cigarette bins in Green Lanes and why we’ve introduced hundreds of new litter bins in Haringey.
“But we then need to crack down on those people who continue to drop cigarette butts and who continue to drop litter rather than using the many bins we provide.
“We need to drum home the message that we won’t tolerate behaviour that spoils Haringey’s environment.”
The Clean Sweep was the sixth to take place in the borough. Major clean-up work has already taken place in Tottenham and Seven Sisters, Northumberland Park and White Hart Lane, West Green and Bruce Grove, Wood Green and Noel Park, and council estates across the borough.
|Back to topDid you know?
- Haringey’s street cleaners pick up nearly 9,000 tonnes of litter from streets and open spaces each year
- The borough’s street cleaning operation takes place 24 hours a day from Monday to Saturday. During the night a street washing team hoses down a range of roads across the borough
- From mid-September each year the council introduces dedicated teams to clear fallen leaves. Resources are then increased from the start of November, when four or five teams use refuse collection vehicles to travel around the borough on a rota system. Last year Haringey recycled 67 tonnes of leaves
- We sweep our roads at least once a week and some up to five times per day. That’s 182,000 kilometres swept every year – about half the distance from the Earth to the Moon or nearly five times around the equator
- Since the launch of Better Haringey in the autumn of 2003, the council has installed around 700 new bins in the borough’s streets
- You can get rid of up to 15 items free of charge at any one time through the council’s Community Clear Up scheme. The latest round of collections will continue until March 2008. A leaflet will be dropped through your door to inform you when the service is coming to your street, or visit www.haringey.gov.uk/communityclearup
To find out more or report an issue, visit www.haringey.gov.uk/refuseandrecycling or call Haringey Accord on 020 8885 7700.
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