Neighbourhood Nightmares: Self-appointed LITTER king creates GENIUS app to clean up UK
KENT local Danny Lucas is on a mission to ‘put the Great back into Britain’.
Man invents litter shaming app to clean up UK streets
ITV’s programme Neighbourhood Nightmares explores the everyday issues faced by locals living side by side in the UK.
Tonight’s episode investigated the pressing problem of waste.
The UK is officially the dirtiest nation in Europe. Every 35 seconds, someone in Britain dumps waste illegally in the form of fly-tipping.
One British man has taken it upon himself to clean the country up.
One Kent local has come up with an app to address the UK's litter problem
When it comes to littering, for Danny it’s personal.
He said: “It’s infuriating, it’s offensive. It makes me very angry to think that anybody could do this.
“What sort of mindset allows anybody to think this is great?”
Danny was so fed up seeing fly-tipping strewn around his town of Kent, he decided to do something to address it.
Danny Lucas has developed the Littergram app which has personally cost him more than £150k
James Phillips is one of the app's biggest fans, spending 45 minutes every day snapping litter
The construction firm boss developed an app called Littergram to give his campaign some legs, millions of them in fact.
Danny explained: “I thought, I’m going to create an app and make 40m smartphone users become the eyes of the litter problem in the UK.”
So far he’s poured more than £150,000 of his own money into the ambitious project and stands by the staggering amount.
He said: “For me it’s going to worth every penny because I just want to see the UK cleaned up and put the Great back into Britain.”
Every 35 seconds, someone in the UK is guilty of fly-tipping
Users of the app can take pictures of litter they spot in the streets and upload those to the local authority.
More than seven councils have signed up to date and others are considering the proposal.
One of the app’s most voracious fans is James Phillips, who spends 45 minutes each day snapping litter and uploads 450 times a month.
James said: “I could be described as somewhat of a litter activist.”
Users like James are notified once the litter has been removed, which can happen within a matter of hours.