Over the Pride weekend, the council’s Cityclean staff worked around the clock dealing with rubbish and recycling.
Pride goers and day trippers
Pride is the busiest weekend of the year for the council’s refuse, recycling and street cleaning staff due to a combination of visitors arriving to celebrate Pride and the seasonal rise in day trippers during the school summer holidays.
Huge crowds were seen across the city, with many staying late into the night making the clean-up operation massive.
Use the bins or take it home
Residents and visitors are always asked to use bins provided or take rubbish and recycling away if the bins are full. It’s not possible to empty bins in crowded areas.
If people dump items on the street, it can take time to deal with. The teams also needed people to disperse before some areas could be cleaned as litter picking between densely crowded people doesn’t work.
Staff were employed to work shifts day and night over the weekend, with the first shift starting at 5am on Saturday and the last shift ending at around 6am on Monday morning.
Staff worked through the night on Saturday to clean the area around Preston Park and St James's Street. Cityclean clear most of the city during the Pride weekend.
Partnership with Pride
Pride takes responsibility and pays for cleaning up in their official event areas in Preston Park, the Old Steine, St James’s Street and also behind the Community Parade that marches from Hove Lawns to Preston Park.
This year Pride provided more resource than ever before, including bringing in additional litter pickers, extra bins, extending the reach of their cleaning areas and organising a Sunday morning beach clean event in the city centre on Sunday morning.
Major clean up
Additional rubbish bins were installed in various locations around the city and collected early on Monday morning.
About 67 metric tonnes was collected during this time, that’s the equivalent of almost seven fully compacted refuse lorries of rubbish or around 67,000 full binbags. It’s comparable to the amount of rubbish that the council normally collects in one day from across the entire city.
Five large scarab sweeping machines were used to support the clean by our street cleaners up throughout the weekend.
The Pride clean-up operation will finish tomorrow (Tuesday 6 August) with jet washing of streets and pavements at St James's Street.
Pride anniversary to be proud of
Chair of the Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee, Councillor Anne Pissaridou, said: “This year’s Pride was the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots and was a chance to look back at the achievements hard won and the rights still to fight for.
"The event rightly drew large numbers of people to the city for the occasion to mingle with the holiday day trippers enjoying a day by the sea and all that Brighton & Hove has to offer.
“Our street cleaners and all our partners do a tremendous job to keep the city clean during the busiest weekend of the year.
More information
What was done to ensure the city is kept as clean as possible over Pride weekend?
During the Pride weekend we put additional bins on the seafront as well as along the way along the Pride Parade route. The bins were then left until Monday morning to ensure bigger capacity for litter across the city.
How many staff were there in total over the weekend?
There were 40 extra staff and around 200 staff in total.
We employ more staff to help in the clean up after the parade and also after the increase in the footfall. During the Pride weekend we work 24/7. The operations started on Saturday at 5am and continued until Monday 6am.
Were the Environmental Enforcement Officers working?
The officers were out and about on St James’s Street on Saturday working with businesses to educate about waste removal and handing out pocket ashtrays to people attending Pride events.