Fewer bins…less litter? Canal & River Trust plan to remove receptacles from towpaths meets concern

Endangered: a full bin on Regent’s Canal. Photographs: National Bargee Travellers Association

Canal & River Trust (CRT) aims to solve litter problems on East London waterways – by reducing the number of bins along their paths.

The Trust, which manages 80 per-cent of waterways including the River Lea which passes through Hackney, plans to remove 40 per-cent of litter bins from towpaths nationally.

In a recent meeting between London National Bargee Travellers Association (LNBTA) and CRT, Sam Thomas, CRT’s London Customer Operations Manager said: “there is equal evidence for and against having less bins”.

Bin and gone: some trash cans have already been removed from Hackney

CRT plans to keep the bins in storage and only reinstate them if litter continues to be a problem.

In response to the announcement, Marcus Trower, Deputy Chair of the LNBTA said: “When CRT told us about their plans to take away 40 per-cent of bins to reduce litter, I thought they were joking.”

When challenged by the anti-litter campaign group, Keep Britain Tidy, CRT blamed the ‘mistreatment’ of bins as a justifiable reason to remove them.

CRT said: “In London, a number of litter bins along the towpath were being mistreated and were being used by people to fly tip…this means the bins in question were overflowing.

“People walking along the towpath will have to carry their litter a little further to put it in a bin, or maybe even take it home.”

Keep Britain Tidy has described the move as ‘concerning’. Many have suggested that emptying the bins more often would be a more common sense approach to reducing the problem of bins over-flowing.

This is a bit concerning, thanks for bringing it to our attention. We will have a conversation with the @CanalRiverTrust

— Keep Britain Tidy (@KeepBritainTidy) May 18, 2017

When quizzed about the frequency at which the bins are emptied, CRT said: “Some daily, some weekly, some depend on season”.

CRT’s announcement comes one week after the agency welcomed boaters back to the Bow Back Rivers that run through East London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, after they had become “virtually unnavigable”.

The clean-up operation was part of a 10-year transformation project, forming part of the wider regeneration of the Hackney Wick area in the lead up to and following the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The investment totalled in excess of £60 million.