Sustainable Cities and Communities

Hubbub & McDonald’s Drone Partnership to Combat Summer Litter

The team will utilise drone technology in 'UK-first' to tackle litter on the South Coast.

Campaign charity Hubbub has teamed up with fast-food giant McDonald’s to announce a ground-breaking campaign, ‘Leave Only Footprints’, in tackling litter this summer using drone technology and AI.

The campaign will support Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council in combatting litter going forward by gathering drone data over the busy summer period to inform the future placement of bins, street cleansing schedules and behaviour change campaigns to encourage people to dispose of their litter responsibly.

According to Hubbub’s website, they will use drones, fixed cameras and mobile and vehicle technology sponsored by McDonald’s to monitor public spaces and create detailed litter maps, identifying hot spots for littering.  The approach has been adopted from technology developed by start-up Ellipsis Earth, which was first used in Sorrento in 2020.  The summer project there enabled Italien authorities to reduce their litter by 45% and cigarette waste by 69%!

Audits have already started in the area to monitor local street cleanliness prior to the summer period – Planetary can’t wait to see the results!

Posted by Claire Edwards 1 May 2021

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