Information on Loughborough

Dont Be a Dirty Pig

Posted on 14/01/2009

Charnwood Borough Council is joining forces with Encams and their Keep Britain Tidy campaign in an attempt to rid the streets of fast food litter.

The environmental charitys Dirty Pig campaign aims to tackle the problem of wrappers, cartons and uneaten food dropped on the ground. Posters will go up around the area with the concept playing on the idea of labelling teenagers who drop litter as dirty pigs. The 18-24 year demographic was identified as the worst perpetrators from a study carried out by Encams. The campaign was initially run in December 2007 and achieved some fantastic results and a reduction of fast food litter by 35% in key locations across the UK.

Fast food makes up a quarter of all litter on the streets. In addition to encouraging rats, it is claimed that a neighbourhood blighted by litter can act as a magnet to more serious crimes.

As part of its campaign, Encams will be supplying Dirty Pig posters to the council showing how dropping litter can make people appear to others in an attempt to change attitudes. The posters will go up on billboards, bus shelters and phone boxes.

Cllr. Michael Preston, Charnwood Borough Council Lead Member for Environment, said: "Charnwood will step up enforcement action and issue fines to anyone caught dropping litter. Charnwood will be launching their campaign on Thursday 15th January and will be encouraging members of the public to pledge their support through a month of advertising and campaigning. We will be leading the campaign and trying to get local businesses to come on board and help reduce the numbers of fast food litter appearing on our streets.

The Dirty Pig campaign is being run alongside a national survey conducted by the environmental charity to identify which fast food brands are the major sources of litter.

Phil Barton, Keep Britain Tidy chief executive, said: "Fast food litter is a considerable problem for many communities. It is a huge eyesore and adversely affects peoples perceptions of themselves and their neighbourhoods.

"We also believe that low level anti-social behaviour such as littering can lead to more serious crimes which have a major impact on quality of life in an area, Mr Barton added.

Fast food filth facts:

1/ Fast food litter is a major problem. It refers to food eaten on the go which ends up strewn on our streets such as leftover pizza, burger boxes and chip wrappers.

2/ A quarter of our streets (24%) are blighted by fast food rubbish like burger boxes and chip wrappers.

3/ Food litter can cause permanent grease stains to pavements.

4/ Not only does dropped food litter look a mess, it also attracts rats and other vermin (There are now 65-80 million rats in the UK).