South Wales Evening Post - 3 February 2009
Swansea is one of the dirtiest places in Wales, according to a new report.
Keep Wales Tidy published the principality's first-ever all Wales litter survey —with smokers being the worst offenders for messing up our streets.
Anglesey was declared the cleanest county in Wales, while Newport came out the grubbiest.
However, Swansea and Neath Port Talbot were both at the lower end of the table, with both racking up "cleanliness" scores below the national average.
Tegryn Jones, chief executive of Keep Wales Tidy, hopes the stats will shame councils and citizens into action.
He said: "The information will hopefully be used to develop appropriate strategies to achieve cleaner streets.
"During the surveys a number of common factors were identified and if tackled would lead to an improvement in the cleanliness of streets.
"Responsibility for tackling this nationwide shame lies with all of us.
"It's not acceptable to throw litter and this report highlights the size of the problem we need to overcome as we seek to achieve a clean, safe and tidy Wales."
Keep Wales Tidy put together the league table of 22 local authorities following research on 2,525 streets between April 2007 and February 2008. Researchers assessed a range of different factors such as dog fouling, fly-tipping and litter.
Fag ends accounted for 90 per cent of rubbish found on roads and pavements, with Keep Wales Tidy blaming the new laws on smoking in public places.
Pro-smoking group the Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco (Forest) said a concerted effort by both smokers and authorities was needed.
Spokesman Neil Rafferty said: "Obviously smokers shouldn't be dropping fag ends, but councils need to make it easier for smokers to dispose of them.
"We need a bit of consideration from smokers and a bit of imagination from politicians to solve this problem."
Results also found that food waste, such as crisp packets and plastic bottles, clogged up over half of our streets; while animal faeces and graffiti was present on 15 and 12 per cent respectively.
Keep Wales Tidy then put the figures together and came up with a Cleanliness Index, with the average for Wales being 65.
