Cardiff Council plan to tackle the city's street filth with a programme of intensive cleansing.
The Waste Management and Street Cleansing business plan was presented to the council at last night's environmental scrutiny committee, where councillors were keen to see a targeted effort to clean up the city's streets.
Chair of the scrutiny committee, Simon Wakefield, highlighted recent media attention on the "tired" look of the city centre and asked who was in charge of street cleansing in The Hayes. Officers replied the area from Habitat to Mill Lane it is the responsibility of the developer to clean the streets – but that the council would be stepping up measures to make sure the streets are kept clean.
David Lowe, waste operations officer, said:
"This issue is the cleansing of the public realm rather than litter picking. This is a tough challenge because basically we are trying to wash the streets. We have a rota in place for washing public places but it's a challenge to keep it spotless in the hot weather. But we are going to review this and try to find ways to make it better."
Environment officials announced a new "sealant" will be trialled across the city centre streets after a 'deep clean' process has taken place in an area. It is hoped this will reduce build up of grime on streets.
Councillor Jacqui Parry said:
"Cardiff is a very busy city with lots of visitors, shoppers and workers, coming to the city centre. The additional numbers of people are clearly adding to pressures on street cleansing."
Officers confirmed the number of people coming to the city centre since the opening of St David's 2 shopping centre was an increase of 12 million over six months. The strategy will consider looking at measures other big cities have taken to make use of resources.
Paul Orders, corporate director for built environment, said: "We need to look to different measures to ensure we are able to improve the level of cleanliness in a sustainable way."
Other methods for street cleansing improvements
The programme for improving Cardiff's streets will also include measures to prevent extra little being dropped or dumped.
This includes an increase on fly tipping prevention and the implementation of 100 new recycling bins, with compartments similar to those in the city centre, dotted around the Cardiff in the next year.
Officers also hope to roll out the kerbside caddy scheme which has seen success in some parts of the city centre, and move into a new phase to encourage city centre businesses to take up the community toilet scheme.
A new waste strategy is being developed for the city – and is expected to come to scrutiny in October this year, being implemented in the city by early 2011. The strategy will be based on evidence and local perceptions of recycling in Cardiff – such as the fact 48.8% of people rate recycling collection as very good, a drop from 53.2% in 2008 but 80.6% were aware of fixed penalty notices linked to environmental crimes – which shot up from 25% in 2008.
But the council officers expressed their concern over the statutory recycling targets for Wales set by the Welsh Assembly Government in their 'Zero Waste' strategy document – the council must be recycling 52% in the next financial year or it faces fiscal fines of up to £200 per tonne above the target.
Council officers said waste management for the city is moving from a focus on providing the service to filling the demands of the customer.
Waste strategy manager Jane Cherrington said:
"We are looking for a Cardiff solution. We need to make sure we meet the targets – which eventually means reaching 70% recycled waste. Cleansing is going to be the next big project in the next few months. We want a demand based approach to reach WAG targets we have to get the public behind it."
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