A new litter awareness campaign is set to sweep Bradford.

Bradford Council is joining forces with the Telegraph & Argus to get the "Bin It!" message across to thousands of local people.

Bradford city centre and town centres across the district will also be targeted in the week-long litter blitz.

Starting next Monday the campaign will feature a series of roadshows and events all under the banner of litter awareness.

According to the Council's senior cleansing officer, Ray Garland, every day the Council's 500 cleansing staff battle to keep the streets neat but with one worker catering for every 1,000 head of population it's a never-ending struggle.

He said it was not a case of needing more street sweepers or binmen but rather a question of containment and education.

"It's fact that if everybody disposed of their rubbish correctly then we'd be out of a job and we wouldn't need to spend taxpayers' money on cleansing. Theoretically there should be no need to clean the streets. If people didn't throw down litter then we wouldn't need to pick it up," he said.

During the campaign a giant skip will be put in the middle of Centenary Square and rubbish from the city centre streets will be dumped in there very day. At the end of the week there will be a community clean-up campaign on the edge of the city to tackle all the grot-spots.

And when the litter campaign is over the Tidy Business Standards - a Tidy Britain Group initiative run in conjunction with Bradford Council - will swing into action, giving awards to businesses which show the best practices.

The "Bin It!" campaign has been warmly welcomed throughout the city.

Bradford Lord Mayor Tony Miller said: "People tend to think the environment is about pollution and car fumes. But they tend to forget the damage caused by dropping litter across our city. I welcome the campaign because a clean city is good for the people of Bradford and will attract business to the area."

Telegraph & Argus editor Perry Austin-Clark said: "The T&A is fully behind this campaign. Bradford city centre is the 'shop window' for the city and it's absolutely vital that the 'Bin It!' litter message gets across."

Chairman of the Retail Action Group Jeffrey Frankel said he had witnessed countless incidents where people dumped their rubbish on the floor, even when a bin was just inches away from them.

"It is really important that we spread awareness of this issue and we all take part in making Bradford a cleaner and tidier place to live."

Bradford's senior cleansing officer Ray Garland said: "The aim is to make people aware that it's against the law to drop litter. It's all about containment and education.

"All our binmen take pride in what they do but it really is dispiriting when you clean an area and then a resident, shopkeeper, or just an ordinary member of Joe Public drops litter. There are bins all over the district and we want to encourage people to use them."

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