Extra Staff Recruited to Help Keep the City’s Streets Clean

Forty additional staff will join the core team of 37 city centre street cleansing operatives in August, to help manage extra demand over the busy summer period.

Crews will provide a 24-7 service, covering 180km of Capital streets to clear litter, service bins and uplift fly-tipping – all of which require extra resource as the city’s population doubles during August.

Transport and Environment Convener, Councillor Lesley Macinnes, said: “Festival time is upon us again and we’re getting ready to welcome hundreds of thousands of visitors from Scotland and the rest of the world to explore and enjoy our wonderful city.

“With this extra influx of people, though, comes a huge added pressure on our resources, which is why we’re bolstering our street cleansing squad for August.

“We’re also unveiling some eye-rollingly lame jokes on around 30 litter bins in the busiest Fringe venue areas. These jokes are intended to raise a laugh, but they make a more serious point about the fact we all have our part to play in keeping Edinburgh looking her beautiful best. As the vinyls say, we’ll bin our bad jokes if people bin their litter!”

Every year, cleansing activity is increased to manage demand as the city population almost doubles, and is planned based on demand over previous years.

Day time ‘barrow beat’ staff will be assisted by a night services crew, on hand to service litter bins waste near pubs, clubs and fast food shops while environmental wardens will focus on particularly busy periods, discouraging litter-dropping and fly-tipping, working alongside the Waste Compliance Team to enforce against any trade waste infringements by businesses.

Find out more about reporting litter on the Council website.