M8 road cleaning and litter collection: EIR release

Information requested

A copy of the scheduling for cleaning litter on the M8 and a copy of the national cleaning schedule for all the motorways.

You also asked how Transport Scotland adhere to the 'Keep Scotland Beautiful' motto.

Response

As the information you have requested is 'environmental information' for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information  outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

Under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, road litter collection is a matter for the relevant Local Authority even when the road is a trunk road. However, there is an exception to that, when the road is a motorway in which case one of Transport Scotland’s Operating Companies, or Design Build Finance Operate (DBFO) concessionaires will collect the litter.

Transport Scotland has contracts in place with Operating Companies and Design Build and Operate (DBFO) contractors to ensure that Scottish trunk roads are safe, efficient and well managed. These duties includes litter collection and information on the litter responsibilities for each of the Operating Companies and DBFO's can be found here  - The Trunk Road Network | Operating Companies |Transport Scotland.

Please see Annexes A to D for the following litter cleaning schedules for trunk roads, including  motorways, which are held for 2025:

• Annex A – BEAR Scotland – South East Unit
• Annex B – Scottish Roads Partnership – M8/M73 DBFO
• Annex C – Autolink - M74 DBFO
• Annex D – Balfour Beatty - M77 DBFO

Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), Transport Scotland is not required to provide information which it does not have. We do not have does not have some of the information you have requested because some units do not hold a specific litter picking schedule. The following units program litter collection reactively when any litter is noted during their inspection cycle’s:

• Amey – North East Unit
• Amey – South West Unit
• BEAR Scotland – M80 DBFO

Regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), also applies to your request for a copy of a national cleaning schedule for all motorways. This is because this is information not held as each of the individual Operating Companies and DBFOs are separately responsible for litter clearance for of the networks they are responsible for.

This exception is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about litter cleaning schedules, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

Keep Scotland Beautiful

Transport Scotland adheres to the Keep Scotland Beautiful’s motto for a "clean, green, sustainable Scotland," and their mission is to inspire changes in behaviour to improve the environment and people's lives. We do this by having a litter champion within our Roads Directorate who works closely with Keep Scotland Beautiful, Zero Waste Scotland and also Scottish Government’s Reuse & Reduce Waste Prevention Circular Economy Division.

We ensure that our Operating Companies collect litter in the motorway’s and special roads and monitor this through our external auditor The Performance Audit Group. We are also planning to run a targeted litter campaign in 2025 and are working with Zero Waste Scotland with their National Litter and Flytipping Strategy that will look to encourage behaviour change, enhance Infrastructure and services and consider enforcement.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

EIR 202500457945 - Information released - Annex A - D

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