Scotland is still filthier than before the pandemic.

The nation’s streets are slightly cleaner than they were last year, according to the latest and most comprehensive environmental survey.

But the country remains in the grip of what campaigners say is a “litter emergency”.

And environmentalists warn our throwaway culture and on-the-go smoking, eating and drinking habits continue to make it hard for Scotland to do its bit to tackle human-made climate change.

Every year charity Keep Scotland Beautiful (KSB) monitors around 13,000 public spaces - such as streets, squares and parks - right across the country on behalf of local and other authorities.

Inspectors count rubbish, everything from cigarette butts and tin cans to flytipped mattresses and fridges.

Read more: Scotland litter: Volunteer armies of litter pickers are in demand

In 2022-23 the charity found that 9.4% of sites it checked were unacceptably littered - with rubbish accumulating. That was down from a record high of 10.3% a year earlier but up from 7.7% in 2019-20 and just 3.7% in 2013-14.

A spokeswoman for KSB said: “Scotland-wide street litter cleanliness scores are slightly worse for 2022-23 when compared to pre-pandemic 2019-20 figures. 

“But, they do show a slight improvement on last year indicating that duty bodies are recovering from the impact on services.”

Covid had a devastating effect on the ability of local authorities and other responsible bodies to clean up litter. Councils focused on some of their statutory and basic services.

Some neglected pavement weeding, letting grass grow through gaps, providing perfect traps for wind-borne rubbish. The pandemic changed habits, including where and how we throw things away.

But KSB points out that their survey - called the Local Environmental Audit and Management System or LEAMS - shows Scotland has been getting dirtier for the last decade.

LEAMS is the gold-standard in street cleanliness monitoring and is designed to help national and local governments and other responsible authorities identify the scale and nature of the problems they face. The data it produces goes far further than its headline cleanliness score.

Much of the recent negative publicity around litter tends to focus on the main drags of Scotland’s biggest cities, the nation’s shop windows. And this is despite the fact these areas tend to be cleaned the most. Survey data suggests wider problems in busy neighbourhoods.

“The evidence continues to show that urban high footfall areas present significant challenges for duty bodies in maintaining good local environmental quality standards,” a spokeswoman said. “One in six sites in high footfall hub areas (town/city centres, transport routes, high schools) and high-density residential areas recording significant levels of litter. This drops to one in seventeen in low density residential areas.”

LEAMS also once again demonstrates that litter is a bigger problem in poorer places than rich ones. “Overall, in Scotland, 23% of sites audited within the 20% most deprived areas of Scotland recorded a significant issue with litter, compared to 3% in the 20% least deprived,” the spokeswoman explained.

The focus has long been on areas with the worst pollution. But only in four sites in Scotland inspected by KSB auditors were free of litter.

Inspectors carefully record what rubbish is finding its way in to public places. Smoking waste - most obviously plastic cigarette butts - made up half of all the individual items logged by KSB.  Single use vapes were found in 6% if sites inspected.

Food and drink packaging made up a quarter of the total number of individual pieces of litter identified.

The LEAMS physical inspection findings are corroborated by a separate opinion survey of more than 2000 Scottish residents conducted for KSB by Diffley Partnership at the beginning of this month. The weighted poll found fully 70% of those questioned thought there was a litter problem in their area.

Overall, 90% agree littering is a national problem and 85% want more action to prevent it.

The poll suggested Scots are seeing the same kind of trash as KSB inspectors. As many as 44% of those asked said they often saw single-use e-cigarettes as litter. Half of Scots said they thought vapes were being thrown away more commonly than last year. That figure was even higher in poorer areas.

The share of people who very or somewhat often saw littered bottles and cans was even higher, 66%.

The Scottish Government earlier this summer approved a new national strategy for dealing with litter and flytipping. This was partly informed by LEAMS, but also by a calculation that littering and flytipping were putting an annual £280m drag on the economy. Actually cleaning up street trash only accounts for about £60m of that figure: the rest is the blight caused by mess.

The government beefed up fines. This included making the keepers of cars responsible for litter thrown out of vehicles in their name. One in 10 roadside spots inspected by KSB last financial year was unacceptably littered.

KSB Chief Executive, Barry Fisher, welcomed the new strategy - though it did deliver all his charity’s asks. But he stressed that tackling all the rubbish in our public and private spaces was about more than just making the country look tidy.

He said: “The climate, nature and litter emergencies are all interlinked; with unsustainable consumption at the heart of all three. Tackling litter will lead to important, positive impacts on efforts to combat climate change and halt biodiversity loss."