Litter league table of shame – and we’re right up there challenging to be number one

by Bill Heaney

Dirty old Dunbartonshire. The local Council spin doctors can deny it as much as they wish, but when it comes to litter on our streets and wrecks and sewage in our rivers and lochs our standing in the national league can only de described as shameful.

Scotland is facing a litter emergency with the country recording twice as much rubbish discarded in the street as a decade ago.

According to Keep Scotland Beautiful (KSB), 8.3% of locations across the nation are considered badly littered.

But the state of our streets vary massively across the country. Litter peaked during the Covid pandemic with the places with a “significant presence of litter” reaching 10%.

In 2021, bin strikes saw rubbish pile up in Glasgow while Edinburgh faced a similar scenario during the festival in 2022.

The issue is “significantly worse” in deprived areas such as West Dunbartonshire, while litter was “more frequently observed” in urban areas with 15.1% of high density residential areas being badly littered, according to KSB’s annual report into the issue.

And of course in West Dunbartonshire we had the Council budget cuts which led to grass cutting being halted across the whole the whole area until councillors finally agreed they were wrong and public (and press) opinion won the day.

It is now likely that it will be well into next summer before the population of West Dunbartonshire can take pride in their homeplace.

Over 40% of litter in Scotland is related to smoking with 15.5% being paper related. Drinks related litter accounted for 11.9% while confectionary was 11.3%. Fast food was 5%, vaping 2.3%, and dog fouling 0.7%.

The vast majority of litter, over 70%, is dropped by pedestrians. KSB has called on political parties to make littering a major issue at May’s Scottish Parliament election.

The report states: “We have an opportunity to ensure that the next Scottish Parliament prioritises tackling litter and reducing waste and makes significant and sustained financial investment to do so.

“Alongside polling data which shows just how embarrassed people are about the littered states of their communities, the data in this report will be used to evidence the need for systematic change in the way we view litter – not as something we tolerate and isn’t important – but as something unacceptable, and far more indicative of the disconnection people have from places they should value.”

KSB says its data is to be used inform councils and decision makers about patterns.

But using the analysis in its Local Environmental Audit and Management System (LEAMS) tool, it is possible to rank Scotland’s council areas by which ones have the most littered sites.

It shows that in 2024/25, Clackmannanshire was the dirtiest place in Scotland in terms of litter, and Orkney the cleanest. Perth and Kinross was the cleanest area on the mainland.

See the full league table below:

Scotland’s most littered regions

The figures are based on the percentage of sites where there is either a “widespread distribution of litter with minor accumulations,” or areas that are “heavily littered with significant accumulations”. The other areas are considered to be free of litter or “predominantly free of litter”.