Every street in the City is swept by hand at least twice and
sometimes up to six times every weekday, while at night the roads
are swept mechanically every weekday. A quick response team is also
available to attend accidents and deal with snow clearance and road
salting and special occasions, such as the
Lord
Mayor's Show.
It is a requirement that all streets are swept to a standard
laid out in the "Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse". City
standards which go beyond the requirements of the Code of Practice
by paying particular attention to the removal of dust, fluff and
grit and the eradication of weeds. The standards of the City's
streets are independently monitoried by
Keep
Britain Tidy on a regular basis and their findings are reported
to Cleansing Services.
In order to maintain the City's high levels of cleanliness, one
team of 27 sweepers works from 7.00am to get ready for the rush
hour and to clean up after it subsides. The second team starts at
1.00pm to deal with lunch-time litter before the evening rush home
and stays on to 10.00pm to tidy up after it is over. In addition, a
small team starts at 10.00am and provides extra sweepers to patrol
the busiest parts of the City - one small mechanical sweeper
to sweep channels amid the traffic, a team which clears and washes
Smithfield Market and another which flushes steps and footways
and attends to emergencies.
Finally, the night shift carries out the bulk of the mechanical
sweeping and washing (all main streets are swept and washed daily),
keeps the gullies free and flowing, washes footways and steps and
sends 'Tidy Teams' to all the stations to spruce up around them
after the last late night travellers have departed.
The majority of street cleansing waste collected in the City is
smoking related litter. This is owing to a number of companies
having adopted no smoking policies in their buildings, resulting in
smokers going out onto the street.
The City of London is also able to undertake the cleansing of
non-public highways for a fee. If your company own any non-public
highway and would like to find out more about having it cleansed by
Cleansing Services please contact us by email at
Cleansing.StreetCleansing@cityoflondon.gov.uk or
call 020 7606 3110.