Anti-litter charity questioned

Environmental organisations have questioned Keep Scotland Beautiful’s links to the packaging industry it campaigns against.

The anti-litter charity has links to the Clean Europe Network, whose head, Eamonn Bates, lobbies for the packaging and fast food industry in a separate consulting role.

Derek Robertson, KSB chief executive, is a former president and current board member of the Clean Europe Network.

The network wrote an expert opinion arguing that shifting the financial burden of litter collection to producers wasn’t the way forward.

Bates’s private lobbying firm has links with Burger King, McDonald’s, Starbucks and Haagen-Dazs while Keep Scotland Beautiful has received corporate funding from companies like Tesco, Coca Cola, Red Bull and Irn Bru manufacturer AG Barr.

Richard Dixon, Friends of the Earth Scotland director, said. “Both KSB’s funding sources and the direct association with those opposing action on plastic call into question whether it can be trusted.

“KSB is in danger of becoming a creature of the packaging industry, rather than a serious environmental group.”

A spokesperson for KSB said: “We make no apology for holding manufacturers accountable for their part in providing the packaging that others casually discard so irresponsibly.

“We will continue to demand that corporate business, along with individuals, local and national government does more to tackle our national litter shame.”

KSB previously sparked ire among the environmental lobby it opposed plans to cut litter by charging deposits on drinks containers, dismissing a deposit return scheme as an “unhelpful distraction.”