What is the Great British Spring Clean?
Back for its eighth year, the Great British Spring Clean is the nation’s biggest mass-action environmental campaign.
The campaign by Keep BritainTidy encourages the public to make a real difference in their communities by either hosting or participating in a litter pick.
Our 2023 Campaign
We hosted a number of pop up litter picking events across the district. Litter picking equipment was made available at these events for anyone who wished to participate in picking as much or as little litter as they liked, as one bag makes a big difference! We played games to educate our younger visitors and provided information on our work to tackle litter, and other council services.
We also held a number of competitions throughout the campaign to encourage people to 'do the right thing and put their litter in the bin'.
The dates and locations of the litter picking events we held are detailed below:
We wish to thank all of those who attended our events, or hosted their own litter pick, despite the drizzly weather!
This year we pledged that 500 bags of litter would be collected throughout the campaign period.
At the end of the campaign over 650 bags were collected by an army of local litter heroes! Below are some photos captured throughout our litter picking tour of the district.
Partnering with LitterLotto
Dover District Council has partnered with litter pioneers, LitterLotto, to help reduce street litter.
LitterLotto is a free mobile phone app which offers users the chance to win prizes for doing the right thing and putting litter in the bin.
Once you have downloaded the app, you simply take a photograph using the app as you place your litter in the bin. All litter counts, from a single cigarette stub to an abandoned bottle or takeaway box.
Each time you bin a piece of litter, you get another entry into the LitterLotto national £1,000 weekly jackpot, instant spot prizes and their brand new “LitterLotto Coins”, which may be redeemed for a variety of prizes and extra jackpot entries. You can submit as many entries as you like, just BinItToWinIt!
DDC is also offering a local jackpot of £100 each month for users of the app who bin litter in our district.
In support of the Great British Spring Clean Campaign, DDC provided two additional weekly local jackpots of £100.
Our local Great British Spring Clean winners were Linda Ford and Jen Dutton both of Deal, Kent pictured below:
A big congratulations to both Linda and Jen on their win! To become binner winners like Linda and Jen, all you need to do is download the LitterLotto app and do the right thing and put your litter in the bin!
Why participate in litter picking?
There are lots of reasons why it’s important to get involved in taking action against litter.
More than 2.25 million pieces of litter are dropped in the UK every day, with litter blighting our streets, parks and beaches and costing us nearly £1 billion a year to clear up – yet it’s entirely preventable if people take responsibility for their own waste and use a bin or take litter home with them.
Litter can also harm wildlife. The RSPCA received 7,400 calls to report incidents of animals injured by litter in 2018 in England and Wales. Around 80% of the plastic in our oceans comes from litter dropped inland. You can be part of the solution and help ensure the plastic doesn’t reach the sea!
Taking part in the Great British Spring Clean or litter picking throughout the year is also good for your own well-being and connecting with others in your community.
- 85% of participants surveyed felt more pride in their local area after getting involved.
- 74% of participants surveyed agreed that taking part helped to improve their mood.
- 76% of participants felt empowered to make a change for good.
Poster Design Competition
This Year we teamed up with our refuse, recycling and street cleansing contractor Veolia Environmental Services to host a competition in support of this year's Great British Spring Clean Campaign.
Residents aged under 18 were asked to design a poster that would encourage people to 'do the right thing and put their litter in the bin'. We had an array of fantastic entries this year and the winning design (below) was drawn by Martha (Age 9) of Deal.
The winning design is due to be printed and displayed on the side of a couple of Veolia's vehicles used in our district.
How do I host a litter pick?
Dover District Council can provide litter picking equipment for events and also arrange for the waste collected to be disposed of.
To organise a litter pick and to review all the current safety advice please visit CommunityCleanUps.
You may find Keep Britain Tidy's beginners guide to litter picking of benefit when considering organising your own event.
2022 - An award winning year 
Dover District Council is very proud to be the current holder of the Great British Spring Clean Award for our 2022 campaign. The award was presented to representatives of Dover District Council at the Keep Britian Tidy's Network conference and network awards ceremony which took place in February. To see what we got up to in our award winning campaign please visit our 2022 campaign webpage.
Great British Spring Clean 2022
Litter and Fly Tipping
If litter and fly tipping is an issue in your area, we would encourage you to report this to us. We can arrange for the area to be cleansed by our street cleansing team in publicly maintained areas and arrange for our Environmental Enforcement Officers to conduct patrols to help tackle the issues experienced.