Sheffield could use Government cash to fund 'smart' litter solutions

Environment minister Therese Coffey has announced a £500,000 'litter innovation fund'. Councils can apply for up to £10,000 towards schemes that help tackle rubbish.

Sheffield Council is already looking at 'smart' bins, which detect how full they are and feed back to collection teams when they reach a certain level.

And the authority - which is considering plans to downgrade the city's street cleaning service to save money - said it would look at how the Government money could be used.

Cabinet member for the environment Bryan Lodge said: "We would be interested to see if we can attract any funding towards this and other schemes.

"We are also exploring other options for projects under the litter innovation fund, such as by helping community groups to draw in the funding for their own work as part of the Clean Sheffield campaign."

Coun Lodge said the council took littering 'very seriously' and would continue to prosecute people who drop rubbish or fly tip.

Phil Vintin, of the Sheffield Litter Pickers group, said more smart bins were needed.

He also highlighted existing ideas such as the Fix My Street app, which allows people to report fly tipping and full bins.

"But people need to know it exists," he added. "Or, launch a localised version via the council to make it feel more localised, and set up so that it suits how the teams on the road work.

"I understand that app sends an email to the standard council address and that then gets passed on manually to the teams on the road. If that could be direct then it would make life easier for everyone."

Phil said there should be more incentive for people to report littering as previous campaigns were failing in some areas.

"Maybe points for reporting that can be used against council facilities like Ponds Forge or similar, killing two birds with one stone," he said.

Successful projects could be rolled out across the country if they prove effective, according to the environment minister.

Ms Coffey said: "Tackling the litter that blights streets across our country is an important part of our drive to be the first generation to leave our environment in a better state than we found it."

"The litter innovation fund offers a great opportunity for the most creative solutions to littering to receive funding and for us all to learn new ways of how to stop littering happening."

Allison Ogden-Newton, of the national Keep Britain Tidy campaign, said: "Innovation is vital if we are to change the behaviour of the minority of people who still think it is OK to drop their rubbish on the ground for someone else to pick up.

"We are delighted to see the Government has recognised the importance of innovation to tackle the blight of littering in our country."