Waste complaints during Edinburgh’s festival season dropped by almost a third from the previous year, according to latest figures.
Calls to City of Edinburgh Council on street cleaning, fly-tipping, dog fouling and communal bins during August decreased by 32 per cent from the same period in 2016.
Additional resources were put in place throughout the month to help deal with festivals’ impact, such as 40 extra staff joining the existing 90 to provide 24-7 support.
Transport and Environment Convener, Councillor Lesley Macinnes, said: “These are encouraging figures, they demonstrate the impact our efforts to improve waste and cleansing services are having, not just in the centre but across the city."
“By increasing resources around the busy festival period we have been able to cope better with demand, but we want to continue to target issues like litter and fly-tipping throughout the year.
“While we are working on actions to achieve this, we also need the help of the public, so I would encourage people to take responsibility for their rubbish and help make Edinburgh a clean, welcoming place, whatever the season.”
A 65-point Waste and Cleansing Improvement Plan was approved by the Council’s Transport and Environment Committee in November 2016.
It aims to address poor quality in the waste collection and street cleansing services by focusing on aspects such as waste collection routing, workforce training and communal bin provision.
In the city centre, which sees a sharp rise in visitors over the 2017 festival period, complaints were halved - falling by 53%.
The local authority had also put in place frequent litter bin collections and increased patrols by environmental wardens to discourage litter-dropping and fly-tipping.
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