Every year, thousands of people in the UK make their way to the Notting Hill Festival, or Carnival, which is one of the most well-known carnivals in the UK. Last year alone, it was estimated that more than a million people attended the carnival, and as with any other kind of event involving that number of people, the amount of rubbish left behind is astonishing. Residents of the area often find that there is rubbish thrown into their gardens and basement areas, as well as tons of litter in the street itself. In Kensington and Chelsea, and in Westminster, the route of the Notting Hill Carnival needs to be cleaned in the evening of the festival, and council workers are often not able to do all of the cleaning tasks themselves.
What sort of rubbish is left by the carnival?
The Notting Hill Carnival is a celebration of Caribbean foods, music and dance, and that means that there are several different types of waste discarded by reveller. The most important of these is, of course, food items and packaging, along with drinks cans and cups. The cleaning service will also sweep up a range of other items, particularly decorations hung in the streets during the Carnival, tinsel and decorations from dancers, and even whole dancing outfits. Paper flyers, including posters torn from the walls after the Carnival has passed, will also need to be cleared up by the teams.
The job of cleaning up the streets after a carnival involves the collaboration between people living in the streets, the local council, and other cleaning companies. Residents who are not offered street cleaning by the council may wish to employ private companies to help combat the large amount of plastic, paper and food waste deposited in the streets after the carnival starts.