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: 2005 and 2006

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.