Reclaim Our Lanes GMB Glasgow

Reclaim Our Lanes Glasgow


UNION LAUNCHES CLEAN-UP CAMPAIGN IN SCOTLAND’S BIGGEST CITY
Reclaim Our Lanes: GMB Scotland calls for more enforcers in city-centre clampdown

GMB Scotland today launches a far-reaching blueprint for bins as Scotland’s biggest city recovers
from years of austerity and neglect.
General Secretary Gary Smith joined waste workers in Glasgow to call for urgency and action to
underpin the city’s ongoing clean-up.
The union’s Reclaim Our Lanes campaign calls for the city-centre’s back streets to be cleared of
commercial waste and deep-cleaned to drive forward the regeneration programme.
It is calling for stricter enforcement to ensure businesses, including shops, restaurants and take
aways, keep rubbish secure and have it lifted quickly.
Almost a dozen commercial operators now have contracts to lift commercial waste in the city-centre
but, GMB Scotland claims, standards vary widely and there is too little supervision and enforcement.
Keir Greenaway, GMB Scotland senior organiser in public services, said: “Anyone stepping a few
yards off some of the city’s most famous streets finds lanes covered in overturned bins, burst bags,
fly-tipping and vermin.
“There is no point renovating main streets if the lanes immediately behind them are over-spilling
with commercial waste.”
The union is calling on Glasgow City Council to urgently recruit enforcement officers to monitor
commercial waste and explain to businesses the benefits of local authority cleansing services.
Its action plan, to be presented to councillors and officials, calls for regular uplifts, cleaning and
maintenance of the city’s new bin hubs coupled with strict enforcement to halt fly-tipping and
dumping of commercial rubbish nearby.
Greenaway said: “The benefits are potentially huge for the council, for the city and for taxpayers.
The city is cleaner, the council makes money by taking back commercial contracts, and taxpayers no
longer subsidise businesses and their private waste operators failing to meet required standards.”

GMB’s blueprint for action calls for regular uplifts, cleaning and maintenance of the hubs to
encourage households to use them coupled with strict enforcement of fly-tipping and dumping of
commercial rubbish around the hubs.
John Slaven, GMB organiser at Glasgow City Council, said ensuring the success of the new hubs, a
sea change in how Glaswegians take their bins out, will demand rigorous monitoring, maintenance
and enforcement to curb fly-tipping.
He said: “While people are still getting used to the changes, the priority must be to instil confidence
that bins are lifted regularly and hubs are cleaned and well maintained.
“There is already evidence that shops and takeaways are dumping rubbish in residential hubs and
that, if unchecked, will sabotage an initiative that promises positive change in the city.
“We need a new team of enforcement officers working hand in glove with the council’s commercial
arm to ensure businesses are getting rid of the