Jake Castle is one of Keep Wales Tidy's Litter Project Officers. Here he tells us how he surveys Wales's streets. 
I’m based in the Local Environmental Quality team of Keep Wales Tidy, based in Cardiff. Most of my days are spent carrying out Local Environmental Audit and Management System (LEAMS) work. This is mainly survey and reporting work for a street scene performance indicator. It takes us to just about every nook and cranny across Wales – in the three years I’ve been at it I think there are now only two or three towns I’m yet to visit! Although the surveys are hard work, it is compensated by having flexi time. So when I don’t need to be in Llanduno Junction early in the morning, I can turn up a bit later and play squash for an hour at lunchtime! Starting to sound a bit easy now, isn’t it? Whilst I love flexi-time, I wouldn’t say I need it (having no family commitments etc.) but it means I can do so much more outside of work. This has proven especially useful during the World Cup; allowing pub breakfasts (alcohol free, of course!) and rugby before starting the day in the office. Marvellous!
Another part of my role is providing consultation responses, often to Welsh Government proposals. Recently we’ve been busy giving evidence on the single use carrier bag charge and at the minute I’m looking at proposals to alter temporary permissions on common land. The carrier bag work is something my team has looked into for some years now and the common land consultation will involve me speaking with our community officers who have worked on commons over the years. At the minute most days involve me going back and forth with police and local authority enforcement staff.
In the coming weeks, I’m hoping to join a colleague in Eco-Schools in helping school pupils tackle balloon litter. Many young people seem really clued up on this issue and have already acted to stop local mass balloon releases. The next step may involve pupils putting a petition together and sending it off the National Assembly for Wales.
An ongoing part of the LEAMS process is training local authority staff to carry out the same survey methodology as us, because both Keep Wales Tidy and local authority survey findings contribute towards the performance indicators. In recent weeks I’ve been along to Cardiff and Newport councils both of whom requested that cleansing and collection staff have the training. Teaching anyone other than those directly involved in LEAMS surveying or overseeing it is a first for me but I think it's been worthwhile. Not only does the training inform staff of the level of cleansing that is expected in order to achieve the different grades, but it also runs through the relevant legislation – the headline grabber seems to be the duty on public bodies to keep their land reasonably clear of litter and refuse or risk being subject to a Litter Abatement Order (not to mention the column inches of bad press that this would carry).
It benefits us Keep Wales Tidy lot too – we’re gradually building an understanding of the things that collection and cleansing staff could use some help with.