The good news for Dundee is that it is cleaner than it was last year.

But bad news is that the city - despite its improvement - is now the filthiest local authority in Scotland.

A gold-standard survey of nearly 13,000 spots across the country has found that, overall, that Dundee ranked lowest on the main benchmark figure for litter.

Only 86.4 per cent of sites inspected by Keep Scotland Beautiful in the city were deemed acceptable in 2023-24. 

This figure, which is the proportion of spots inspected that were mostly free of litter, is up from 86.2% a year earlier. 

But as other councils recovered faster from the litter peaks of the pandemic, Dundee found itself at the top of Scotland’s very unofficial league table for the messiest public spaces.

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Its ranking, however, underlines that that there is more rubbish in the streets, roads, squares and parks  of poorer places that richer ones. 

As The Herald has already revealed, the KSB survey, carried out for most local councils, found a huge correlation of between poverty and densely populated urban areas and litter. 

And Dundee - along with Inverclyde, Glasgow, West Dunbartonshire - has some of the country’s poorest communities. 

Dundee councillors last week heard the city fell well short of its target to get a 94% score in the Keep Scotland Beautiful survey - but that more money will be poured in to picking up litter.

A report before the City Governance Committee said: "A dedicated plan was progressed throughout 2023/24 which targeted priority locations, hotspots and routes across the city. 

"While Dundee’s overall LEAMS score increased by 0.2% to 86.4% from 2022/23. 

"Environment will continue to strive to improve this score throughout 2024/25, supported by the £200,000 additional revenue funding to support street cleaning across the city.

"Additional monitoring/ development work will be undertaken this year to ensure all street scene activity is fully co-ordinated including community litter picks. Under the strategic theme of Local Environmental Quality, litter management will be a focus within the new Take Pride in Your City Action Plan 2024-26, which will be reported later in 2024."

Glasgow was second top of the league table - created by The Herald using raw data provided by KSB to local authorities - with 86.5% of its inspected sites considered acceptable. That too was actually an improvement for the country’s biggest city, up from 84.2% the year before.

West Dunbartonshire, another area with heavy concentrations of deprivation, was just behind Glasgow with 87%. Inverclyde, the local authority with the worst record on litter last year, leapfrogged its rivals to record a higher than the Scottish average figure of 94.1%.

A spokesman for Inverclyde Council explained the improvement: "Last year's score was disappointing and we felt it didn't reflect the hard work of our teams across the area. 

"It's pleasing therefore to see this year's score is much improved which we feel better reflects the efforts of our grounds staff who are out and about on a daily basis doing their best to keep our towns and villages clean and tidy.”

The official revealed the local authority had put more money in to rubbish.

He said: ”We have also invested heavily in new equipment to deal with weeds and detritus on our pavements and we are continuing with the rollout of bird/animal proof litter bins to prevent litter being blown out and polluting our rivers.’

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People often think of litter as rubbish that has been lost - but trash escaping from bins is also an issue. Inverclyde is not the only local authority investing in systems to stop animals and especially birds getting in to rubbish. New York City - whose litter is legendary - has done the same in recent months.

The Inverclyde spokesman continued: "Credit also to the many volunteers who regularly carry out litter picks in their local areas and we continue to support them and thank them for their selfless work. 

"However, it's worth remembering that council staff and volunteers shouldn't have to clean up after others.

"We all have an obligation to dispose of our waste in a responsible way and we encourage people to take pride in Inverclyde."

Edinburgh, the most littered council in Scotland just two years ago, has also bounced back, with its results approaching the national average.

KSB does not approve of league-tabling councils. Because, insiders say, it is not fair to judge the schemes of Dundee or Inverclyde with, say the northern or western islands. 

Instead the charity puts local authorities in to “clubs “of similar types of areas, with big cities and urban councils benchmarked against each other. 

So, again using the headline figure of what proportion of inspected sites are acceptable, the figures are 89.7% for Aberdeen, 86.4% for Dundee, 86.5% for Glasgow and 90.6% for Edinburgh. All these numbers represented an improvement.

The overall national picture for litter in Scotland is improving. KSB, explaining its data, added: “Further positive indicators are observed at local level, with 23 local authorities maintaining or improving on their street litter cleanliness score since last year. While local authorities are by in large keeping the majority of sites maintained for litter removal, this does mask a number of areas that are clearly providing challenges which can be explored above.”

The charity added: “Across local authorities there is a wide range of scores nationally and between benchmarked clubs – grouping local authorities of similar characteristics.

"When benchmarking across local authorities, we must consider the many reasons for differences in scores and the context. There are differences in levels of deprivation in each authority area, with a skew to more deprived areas found in urban areas. Further, the budgets and severity in decline of resources will be different across Scotland.”

Deprivation does not explain everything. East and West Dunbartonshire - with very different demographics - have exactly the same score, 87%. For East Dunbartonshire this marked a drop in cleanliness, for the West a minor improvement.

The cleanest local authority was the further north. Shetland scored 98.7%, pipping the Western Isles on 97.5% and Perth and Kinross on 97%. Orkney last year scored a perfect 100% score but slipped back to 96.6%. Highland was a little further behind on 96.4%.

Big Highlands and Islands councils are not without their challenges, including concentrated littering in overtouristed areas.