Zero Waste Scotland (ZWS) is calling on third sector organisations to apply for up to £50,000 grant funding to trial community-led litter prevention projects.

The ‘Third Sector Community Based Litter Prevention Capital Grant Programme’ aims to support third sector organisations in undertaking projects that educate the project in the effects of littering, in a bid to reduce Scotland’s reliance on costly clean-up operations. It is estimated that litter costs the country up to £45 million a year.

The fund has been launched following the publication of an options paper that identified five community-level activities that that have the most potential to prevent littering.

It is these five activities that are now being supported under the capital grant programme. They are:

1. Community campaigns that ‘highlight the problem of littering’ via a variety of online and offline media;
2. Monitoring and citizen science, whereby volunteers undertake data collection to ‘inform interventions and promote litter prevention to a wider audience’;
3. Incentives, financial or otherwise, that can be used to motivate members of the local community to encourage ongoing participation in litter prevention;
4. Community green space and street improvements that repurpose sites for community use; and
5. Wider community building that helps develop a sense of civic pride, which in turn lead to litter prevention effects.

Litter free Scotland ‘safer and more pleasant’ place to live

Speaking of the proposed scheme, Ian Gulland, Chief Executive of ZWS, said: “In line with Scotland’s national litter strategy, ‘Towards a Litter Free Scotland’, we’re working to shift the emphasis of anti-litter initiatives from cleaning up what’s dropped in public areas, to preventing people from littering in the first place.

“This new fund will help third sector organisations to prevent litter and change behaviour within communities, building on our recent research which revealed that people are more upset by litter when it has been left on their doorstep.

“Litter is an eyesore which spoils Scotland’s natural beauty. As well as the obvious costs of cleaning, education and enforcement, litter and fly-tipping has indirect costs of over £25 million a year, for example impacts on mental health and neighbourhood safety. By tackling the problem at its origin, we can help to make Scotland’s communities safer and more pleasant places to live.”

Application details

Applications for the programme are currently open, and will be accepted until 12 noon on the 31 July 2015.

Grants of up to £50,000 will be awarded ‘on a competitive basis, to those applicants that score most strongly overall against the evaluation criteria of the programme’.

Potential applicants can receive an application form and guidance document by registering their details with Zero Waste Scotland.

Find out more about the Third Sector Community Based Litter Prevention Capital Grant Programme