Extra cleaning staff recruited to keep city centre spick and span

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 visitors pour into the city during August.

Some of the recruits helped share the Council’s anti-litter message at the start of the Festival on Friday, encouraging the public to  to keep Edinburgh clean and tidy by binning rubbish.

Transport and Environment Vice Convener, Councillor Karen Doran (above) , said: “We’ve come to that exciting time of year again, when the city’s population swells and our events calendar fills with a whole variety of interesting things to do.

“Of course this extra demand puts pressure on resources, and that’s why we’re relying on the hard work of an expanded street cleansing team to help keep our streets as clean and tidy as possible for residents and visitors alike.

“That said, it’s also down to the public to do their bit and take responsibility for their own rubbish. By dropping litter in the bin or taking it home we can all help make Edinburgh the beautiful, welcoming city it deserves to be.”

As part of the #ouredinburgh campaign, city centre bins – of which there are 350, emptied daily – have been specially branded to encourage the public to drop their rubbish in, while posters and social media posts featuring lame gags promise to ‘bin our bad jokes if you bin your 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 again any trade waste infringements by businesses.