EDINBURGH – SO CLEAN YOU COULD EAT YOUR TEA OFF IT

Edinburgh streets are getting cleaner, with a reduction in dog mess and fewer incidences of graffiti.

These are the encouraging findings of Keep Scotland Beautiful (KSB), announced this morning in a straight-faced City of Edinburgh Council press release containing not a twitch of a smile, not a flicker of an eyebrow, not even the teensiest nervous glimpse at the sole of a shoe.

KSB's latest quarterly Cleanliness Monitoring Scheme assessment took place in June. Of those streets assessed, 95 per cent had 'acceptable levels of litter'.

The Council press release does not specify which streets were inspected. Instead it announces:

'Five out of six Neighbourhoods received a cleanliness index result of 67 or above, achieving the national standard target. Eleven out of 17 wards met or exceeded the Council target of 72, while five wards achieved a result of 100% clean, compared to only two wards in March this year.'

This is, apparently, consistent with an improving trend since 2009–10.

KSB found that 91 per cent per cent of all litter identified in the survey was from pedestrians.

At this point in reading through the press release, a red mist descended. Well of course the rubbish came from ruddy pedestrians. Nobody in their right mind would blame octopuses or flying ants.

And in any case, to many pedestrian minds, the real problem around Broughton this summer has not been poor 'public behaviour' but the shortage of secure places to dispose of rubbish. Locals' recent experiences have involved very few gleaming setts and smiling dustmen whistling 'La Vie en Rose', and mostly embarrassing squalour: overflowing street-corner bins going unemptied, park bins surrounded by wholly predictable BBQ kits and packets of dog-crap, domestic wheelie bins disgorging their excess contents onto pavements, gulls pulling condoms and chicken carcasses out of black bags for which no lorry had arrived on time.

AND what was doubly annoying was that in so many instances, it was clear that Edinburgh pedestrians had been trying to do the right thing, but that – for the umpteenth year running – Edinburgh's waste collection services had simply not been up to the job.

This bleak appraisal is not the barely credible finding of an unexplained survey by faceless clipboard wonks, but the evidence of locals' own eyes and nostrils on a daily basis.

Leith Central Community Council, for example, raised the issue at its most recent meeting on Monday last week.

Members complained of continued hideous scenes the length of Leith Walk, of filthy, damaged and lidless bins discouraging use and commanding only the affection of vermin. They spoke too of the strong suspicion that Refuse staff concentrated on the city centre over the Festival, leaving more outlying and less visible areas to stew in their own nastiness.

Most councillors, it should be acknowledged, appear to grasp the extent of residents' frustration and are pressing for improvements. Unfortunately, though, the problem – worsened, we are told privately, by a combination of unmotivated, disaffected, under-resourced and poorly managed staff in both public and private sectors – is proving a tough nut to crack.

In the meantime, we all know Edinburgh is a mess. No amount of pink-tinted press releases will convince us otherwise.