I have to apologise for our filthy streets - tour guide
Let’s tidy up the city
Unsightly commercial waste has been highlighted as one of the main causes of litter and mess in the city centre.
Retailers, pubs and restaurants must pay for their rubbish to be removed and can leave bags on the street twice a day for morning and evening collections.
Most commercial enterprises in the city centre utilise the service offered by the Bath BID - or Business Improvement District.
A BID is independent from the local authority and works with local businesses to help them grow.
They charge a fee to businesses, on top of the rates that they already pay, and in exchange offer services like cleaning, waste disposal, insurance, marketing and marshalling things that would normally cost more for businesses by themselves.
They also help with promotion of the city, giving businesses a voice in local issues, among other functions. BIDS exist all over the UK, and in Bath, the BID looks after more than 650 businesses.
Corporate Waste
One of the biggest issues with commercial waste lies with seagulls and birds ripping open bags, causing food and litter to spill onto the street.
While the BID offers twice daily general waste collections, it only operates food collections twice a week. Many eateries end up putting food into general waste bags which are then attacked. In addition, while seagull-proof bags are provided, they are not always used.
176 of the businesses on the BID’S directory are in the hospitality industry, which includes a large number of bars, restaurants, and cafes. The BID has had a trade waste and recycling service partnership with waste management company SUEZ for the past seven years, and offers a discounted service for levy payers.
According to the BID, the service offered by SUEZ to levy payers includes:
■ A preferential rate, typically 25 per cent below market operators.
■ Zero to landfill service, with even greater savings for recycling and minimisation of future business exposure to landfill tax increases.
■ 13 collections per week, mornings and evenings Monday-saturday and once on Sunday evenings.
■ Free cardboard collections with dry mix recycling collections (provided businesses have a general waste contract).
■ Focus on reducing the negative impact of seagulls with more frequent, timed collections and free seagull-proof bags. ■ Confidential waste disposal services available.
■ Separate food waste and glass collections.
Assisting the Council
While communal bins in the city centre are the responsibility of the council to empty, Allison Herbert (inset), chief executive of the BID, says it sometimes assists in bin emptying as an act of courtesy.
“We have the keys to the bins, so if we notice that one is overflowing, we will be helpful and empty it,” she said. “We have six rangers who are out and about in the city all the time and who sometimes help when needed.
“The fact that the council gave us the keys is a symbol of trust, and that we work closely together.”
She added that rangers may assist the council during periods like the Christmas market, when a lot of people are coming in and out of the city centre, and local services are under a lot of pressure.
Pee, poo, and vomit
Allison said that the BID’S “biggest issue in terms of litter relates to bird poo”. “We do spend a lot of time cleaning it up,” she said.
“We’re quite specialist in this issue. In May for example, we did over 300 responsive jobs and just over 150 planned jobs.”
Responsive jobs refer to cleaning tasks that come out of the blue.
The BID has its scheduled cleaning jobs for the day, and then Allison said they also receive calls “from someone outside their shop saying that some kind of litter has been left behind.”
These responsive jobs can involve dropped litter, and bags that have burst, but around a third of the responsive jobs are taken up by instances of “pee, poo, and vomit”. Which means that in the last month alone, the BID would have cleaned up pee, poo and vomit around 100 times.
“It’s a vital job that no one really knows about as it’s normally gone within 20 minutes,” she added.
Seagulls
Seagulls are notable pests in Bath, and have been known to swipe food from outside tables, and bursting through waste sacks that are left outside.
Part of the deal that the BID offers to businesses includes them getting free “seagull-proof ” bags, which stop birds from poking through the waste sacks and spilling rubbish onto the street.
Allison said that the bags “are pretty good” and that BID levied businesses “use them regularly”.
However, she added that seagulls become “more desperate” when they have chicks to feed and she has seen a seagull “poke through” one of the bags if “very determined”.
In addition to providing seagullproof bags, the BID also hires
Murray the hawk is used to disrupt the seagulls, and prevent them from nesting in Bath.the hawk is brought into four different locations on Tuesdays and Thursdays” Allison Herbert, chief executive of the BID
someone to bring Murray the hawk to Bath twice a week.
Allison said: “Murray the hawk is used to disrupt the seagulls, and prevent them from nesting in Bath.
“The hawk is brought into four different locations on Tuesdays and Thursdays” she said.
Seagulls normally return to where they were born, so by encouraging seagulls to nest elsewhere, she added that they are helping to keep Bath’s seagull population down for the future.
She added that their work was just the “icing on the cake” as the council already does “significant work” to reduce the number of gulls in Bath. One of the seagull-proof bags, which the birds have been known to poke through when desperate to feed their young education
Allison said that the BID and the council “work very closely together”. They meet with the council’s cleaning team once a week, but in addition to this, she added that they also shared a member of staff.
The education and enforcement officer works for both Bath and North East Somerset Council and the BID and acts as “almost a daily link” between the two bodies.
“He’s retained by the council, which means he has enforcement powers for people who don’t put out their litter properly,” she said.
But he also stops businesses from being enforced against by letting them know what they are doing wrong before they get fined.
“We pay for the education and the council pays for the enforcement,” she added. “So if a business isn’t using seagull proof sacks, for example, he will see them and educate them. As a result, we have had a significant fall in the number of enforcement actions.”
Allison said that educating businesses on proper waste management is a job that’s “never complete” as new businesses emerge and managers of existing businesses often change.
“Education of people is important to make sure people don’t litter” she said. “We have to keep showing new people how to manage trade waste.”
Bin scheduling
Allison said that other BIDS were “envious” of the way that Bath has been able to schedule its waste collections so well. She said the times when business waste can be left out are quite tightly restricted.
“And it will be reported if people don’t put out rubbish at right times
“Other cities are really envious that we’ve managed to work with all trade waste collectors to get set times when all collections take place at once.”
Food Waste
Allison said that the “big opportunity” for Bath is to increase collections of food waste. While recycling and general waste sacks are collected twice a day Monday-saturday, and once on Sundays, food waste collections are only conducted twice a week.
“There is a relatively poor level of separation of food waste in bins.
“Most of the food waste is going into general waste bags. So we’re starting to work with a couple of waste contractors to pilot some more significant food waste collection, so that could mean upping collections to four times a week for example.”
Seasonal peaks
Bath noticeably has larger amounts of litter in the summer time and during the Christmas Market as masses of new people visit the city centre.
Allison said to compensate, businesses are advised to order as many seagull-proof bags as they will need ahead of time. This could mean they use only a small amount of the bags in a quiet period, and then use the bulk of the bags in the busier months.
However, businesses will receive more bags in “only a few days” if they need more than they anticipated.
Allison said that because of the seasonal peaks, the piles of waste left outside of businesses are “slightly bigger”, which can be a challenge for the proprietors of some of the older, listed buildings that don’t have built-in facilities to hold rubbish bins.
Missed Collections
Allison said that the BID can act as a “safety net” for businesses if they miss a collection.
“If a business missed the lorry and we notice a bag is out, our rangers have permission to pick up people’s waste, and we have somewhere to store that waste until the lorry comes back.” she said.