Reclaim Our Lanes Glasgow<br /><br /><br />UNION LAUNCHES CLEAN-UP CAMPAIGN IN SCOTLAND’S BIGGEST CITY<br />Reclaim Our Lanes: GMB Scotland calls for more enforcers in city-centre clampdown<br /><br />GMB Scotland today launches a far-reaching blueprint for bins as Scotland’s biggest city recovers<br />from years of austerity and neglect.<br />General Secretary Gary Smith joined waste workers in Glasgow to call for urgency and action to<br />underpin the city’s ongoing clean-up.<br />The union’s Reclaim Our Lanes campaign calls for the city-centre’s back streets to be cleared of<br />commercial waste and deep-cleaned to drive forward the regeneration programme.<br />It is calling for stricter enforcement to ensure businesses, including shops, restaurants and take<br />aways, keep rubbish secure and have it lifted quickly.<br />Almost a dozen commercial operators now have contracts to lift commercial waste in the city-centre<br />but, GMB Scotland claims, standards vary widely and there is too little supervision and enforcement.<br />Keir Greenaway, GMB Scotland senior organiser in public services, said: “Anyone stepping a few<br />yards off some of the city’s most famous streets finds lanes covered in overturned bins, burst bags,<br />fly-tipping and vermin.<br />“There is no point renovating main streets if the lanes immediately behind them are over-spilling<br />with commercial waste.”<br />The union is calling on Glasgow City Council to urgently recruit enforcement officers to monitor<br />commercial waste and explain to businesses the benefits of local authority cleansing services.<br />Its action plan, to be presented to councillors and officials, calls for regular uplifts, cleaning and<br />maintenance of the city’s new bin hubs coupled with strict enforcement to halt fly-tipping and<br />dumping of commercial rubbish nearby.<br />Greenaway said: “The benefits are potentially huge for the council, for the city and for taxpayers.<br />The city is cleaner, the council makes money by taking back commercial contracts, and taxpayers no<br />longer subsidise businesses and their private waste operators failing to meet required standards.”<br /><br />GMB’s blueprint for action calls for regular uplifts, cleaning and maintenance of the hubs to<br />encourage households to use them coupled with strict enforcement of fly-tipping and dumping of<br />commercial rubbish around the hubs.<br />John Slaven, GMB organiser at Glasgow City Council, said ensuring the success of the new hubs, a<br />sea change in how Glaswegians take their bins out, will demand rigorous monitoring, maintenance<br />and enforcement to curb fly-tipping.<br />He said: “While people are still getting used to the changes, the priority must be to instil confidence<br />that bins are lifted regularly and hubs are cleaned and well maintained.<br />“There is already evidence that shops and takeaways are dumping rubbish in residential hubs and<br />that, if unchecked, will sabotage an initiative that promises positive change in the city.<br />“We need a new team of enforcement officers working hand in glove with the council’s commercial<br />arm to ensure businesses are getting rid of the
