The dedicated litter pickers and weed clearers helping to clean up Swansea

It's not the most glamourous job but their efforts have not gone unnoticed

Teams of council workers who pick up litter, remove weeds, clear overgrown lanes and clean signs are making a real difference, councillors in Swansea have said. The cleansing ward teams, as they are known, respond to requests by councillors to spruce up particular areas and are a relatively new service.

A report before the council's scrutiny programme committee included a series of before and after photos of their work, and committee members singled them out for praise. "We are all very impressed with the way it is working out," said committee chairman, Cllr Peter Black. Cllr Lyndon Jones said they did a "fantastic" job, while Cllr Mike White said he was very grateful for their efforts.

The teams are part of a larger street cleaning and fly-tipping and graffiti removal service in Swansea comprising 96 operatives, including nine sweeper vehicle drivers. Without them street bins would constantly overflow, pavements would deteriorate, and night-time hotspots like Wind Street would look very different after a Friday and Saturday night.

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The committee heard that cleansing staff generally had two bags with them - one for recyclable products like bottles and cardboard, and another for non-recyclable waste. Rubbish left in new multi-purpose bins, which can include dog waste, is separated where possible so that recyclable items can be reprocessed.

A committee report said 86% of streets surveyed in Swansea were predominantly free of litter. Discarded wet wipes, however, were found on 11% of streets and dog mess on 5% of them, although the latter figure was the lowest since surveys began nearly 20 years ago. Providing a weekend litter service has become increasingly challenging, said the report, because although staff received extra pay it relied on them putting their names down to do a shift. This has meant that agency workers are sometimes used.

Asked about fly-tipped waste on public land, Jeremy Davies, the council's parks and cleansing group leader, said the target to remove it was five working days although in practice it was often done faster. The council received 2,316 reports of fly-tipping in 2023-24, up from 1,898 the previous year - a rise of 22%. It carried out three fly-tipping prosecutions between April 1, 2023, and mid-August this year, and issued 41 fly-tipping fines. Referring to enforcement, Cllr Black asked if the authority learned from councils which carried out more prosecutions and handed out more fines.

Mark Wade, the council's director of place, said prevention work took place, that warning letters were issued, and that increasing reports of fly-tipping was a national trend. He added that where improvements were possible "we are all ears". The meeting focused on street cleaning and didn't stray onto kerbside waste collections, where there have been well-documented issues in recent months. The report said these issues have had a knock-on impact on street cleaning.