Big Results from Bristol’s Big Tidy

Bristol’s Big Tidy was launched in October 2019 by Mayor Marvin Rees as part of the successful Clean Streets campaign.

A team of street cleansers, graffiti removal experts, enforcement officers and community engagement officers from Bristol City Council and Bristol Waste was created to bring the sparkle back to areas that needed it the most. They’re tasked with delivering an additional 13,000 hours of street cleansing and 4,000 hours of community engagement.

Bristol artist Naomi Skinner created a wonderfully illustrated infographic highlighting some of the Big Tidy results from 2020.

A few of the fantastic stats from the big Tidy’s first year:

• Over 700 streets deep-cleaned in 17 areas across the city
• 471 tonnes of litter, fly-tip and detritus collected
• More than 3,000 graffiti tags removed
• 250 enforcement investigations into fly-tipping
• 600 legal warnings and fixed penalty notices issued
• 22 community events and 61 litter picks

The targeted approach means that once the Big Tidy finishes in an area, the new standard can be maintained by the regular programme of street cleansing work.

Dan Kelly, Deputy Operations Director at Bristol Waste, said:

“It’s been absolutely fantastic to see the improvement in areas of Bristol that might have previously missed out on the kind of intensive focus the Big Tidy has been able to deliver.

“All of the street cleansing team work tirelessly to maintain the cleanliness across the 800 miles of roads in Bristol, but the Big Tidy team allows dedicated resources to focus on an area. This includes addressing issues like overgrown paths and graffiti hotspots which can then be more easily be maintained.”