Without definitive and easily understood figures about the standards relating to those aspects of the environment that matter most to residents, workers, visitors and investors, consensus, partnerships and improvements are harder to achieve. Cleanliness surveying not only measures and records standards, it also diagnoses the sources and causes of existing and emerging problems- thereby helping to set the agenda for action and improvement.

TIDY Northern Ireland has been designing and undertaking cleanliness surveys in Northern Ireland for over ten years. We are the only organisation in Northern Ireland that undertakes cleanliness monitoring and we use the results to help councils and other large landowners improve their cleansing standards. Our survey results are also used to identify sources and prevalent types of litter to help develop our anti-litter campaigns for maximum impact.

We offer a number of different surveys:

Borough Cleanliness Survey

TIDY Northern Ireland's flagship survey, the Borough Cleanliness Survey is currently in its fourth year at gathering quantitative data on Northern Ireland. The survey takes place 4 times per year and involves 160 transects in each participating council area, with over 7 land use types being thoroughly assessed for litter and detritus. Councils involved in this survey can get up to date survey information from the Borough Cleanliness Survey Information section.

Borough Cleanliness Survey Annual Reports are available for:

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

Local Environmental Quality Surveys

In addition to gathering information on litter and cleanliness, this survey looks at the severity of other indicators of poor environmental quality. Additional indicators examined include graffiti, fly posting, fly tipping, vandalism, and broken glass. Otherindicators can also be examine if clients request a particular issue they feel may be a problem in their area.

Ad hoc Surveys/Independent Validation

TIDY Northern Ireland can design surveys to meet the specific requirements of a client, and to gather data on the indicators they have issues with. These surveys can be used to gather baseline data to monitor the success of any initiative implemented to reduce specific problems. It can be used to determine cost effectiveness related to improvements. Subsequent surveys would be undertaken and the data compared to that collected during the baseline survey. As TIDY Northern Ireland is an independent organisation often management committees or councillors give the results we gather increased credibility.

Ad hoc surveys we design are used to monitor the success of campaigns and identify if they have achieved their objectives of changing public behaviour by reducing littering.

In addition to undertaking surveys, we offer training to clients to enable them to undertake surveys and manage the data collected to enable them to get relevant management information from it.

Double whammy of litter and dog fouling makes for dirty streets

The cleanliness of our streets has declined for the first time in five years, with dog fouling, cigarette butts and sweet wrappers littering our streets, degrading our environment and damaging our green image.

Those are part of the findings of an extensive TIDY Northern Ireland litter survey released today (Monday 4^th April 2011) that found just 83% of streets met government standards for litter during 2010. One in every six streets (17%) failed standards this year; nearly twice the rate experienced in 2009, which stood at 9%. Overall, 98% of transects contained at least some litter.

There was an even bleaker picture when it came to the presence of dog fouling with a near three-fold increase from 5% of transects in 2009 to 14% in 2010. One worrying statistic, particularly given the health hazard posed by dog faeces, was the frequency of this form of litter, which was encountered up to 17 separate times on a single transect.

For virtually all areas surveyed the top three litter items encountered were cigarette, confectionary and chewing gum. However, rural areas have unique problems, with high levels of litter being chucked out of passing cars. Drinks, confectionary and fast food litter were the main items defiling our beautiful countryside, all being found on over 50% of surveyed roads.

"It is of great concern to see that Northern Ireland is getting dirtier. For the first time in many years we seem to be losing the battle to keep litter off our streets and are seeing some worrying trends that need to be addressed immediately," said TIDY Northern Ireland Chief Executive, Dr Ian Humphreys. "We are concerned that the economic downturn will continue to impact on cleanliness standards, which in turn will negatively affect the experience of tourists, detract from inward investment and assure us of continually increasing rates as councils are forced to clean up after us, adding to the current £34 million street cleansing costs for Northern Ireland.

The reasons for this marked decline in cleanliness standards is not known but could, for example, be due to the loss of the anti-litter TV advertising campaign run by Belfast City Council up until 2009 or even increased consumption of confectionary and fast food as comfort food during these uncertain times.

If we are to tackle littering then we need people to work together to challenge this behaviour and one positive way to do this is to join us in the BIG Spring Clean at www.tidynorthernireland.org/big-spring-clean which runs from 8^th-17^th April.

Over the past year TIDY Northern Ireland's surveyors have scrutinised public sites covering 48km in the Borough Cleanliness Survey, searching for litter on the pavements and recording the types and sources of litter across a variety of different land use types. The Survey revealed that cigarette litter is now present on four fifths of our streets, with confectionery litter found on 70% of areas surveyed. Dog fouling, regarded as one of the worst forms of litter, remains one of the least frequent offenders, being found on 14% of streets.

Sample of the Borough Cleanliness Survey findings:

Most Common Litter Types - Percentage of areas polluted in 2010 and (2009):

Cigarette - 81% (74%); Confectionery - 70% (61%); Chewing Gum - 62% (58%)

Download a copy of the report here