The army that goes to war on rubbish

They're part of Bath's dawn chorus. Long before many people are even awake, Bath and North East Somerset Council's street cleaning team have already started work covering different routes around the city, tidying up other people's rubbish and mess.

As a World Heritage Site, Bath has a reputation and an image to maintain which relies on clean streets and tidy walkways as well as the protection of its Roman and Georgian legacy.

The council teams aim to make sure that when the sun comes up and the tourists arrive, Bath is looking its best.

Bill Walters, neighbourhood team manager for the city centre, said: "First thing in the morning if bags have been left out, we know they can be attacked by gulls so tidying up all litter, emptying all litter bins – that is our absolute top priority.

Business Cards From Only £10.95 Delivered www.myprint-247.co.uk

myprint-247

View details

Print voucher

Our heavyweight cards have FREE UV silk coating, FREE next day delivery & VAT included. Choose from 1000's of pre-designed templates or upload your own artwork. Orders dispatched within 24hrs.

Terms: Visit our site for more products: Business Cards, Compliment Slips, Letterheads, Leaflets, Postcards, Posters & much more. All items are free next day delivery. www.myprint-247.co.uk

Contact: 01858 468192

Valid until: Sunday, May 26 2013

"With so many people coming to work and tourists arriving, we need to get the city up and running and looking its best as soon as possible."

For the street cleansing team, keeping Bath tidy is a never-ending job. The team work seven days a week on three different shifts. The first team head out with their variety of grime busting machines at 6am followed by a second team at 9am. A later and smaller team, goes out much later in the day to empty all the litter bins.

The many machines used by the team, which sweep, clean and vacuum the city's streets, help staff tackle two of Bath's biggest problems – litter and graffiti.

Gary Skuse operates the graffiti machine and spends his working day travelling the length and breadth of B&NES to remove spray paint from walls and surfaces.

He said: "Graffiti is a big problem. If the kids can find a big stretch of wall they will draw on it. People ring up and say there's graffiti but we luckily don't get much in the city centre."

The recent introduction of new larger capacity 'belly bins' in the city is, meanwhile, helping in the fight against litter, which is the theme of The Bath Chronicle's Clean Bath campaign.

Mr Walters said: "We could spend near enough all day emptying bins so they are giving us the chance to do something else and get other jobs done."

He said: "What would really help us do our job is if people didn't drop litter and cigarette butts. If they didn't do that our jobs would be a lot easier.

"People have high expectations in Bath of how clean and tidy the city should be – rightly so – but we need people to help us keep it tidy. They need to think about where they discard their rubbish."

Mr Walters added the council's working relationship with the Bath Business Improvement District (BID) had benefited the city.

He said: "We have a good partnership and work well with the BID. We've got more machines than they have so there are sometimes things they can't do so we help them out."