We're Talking Rubbish - Subway's Rubbish

Subway on the corner of Grove and Mile End Roads causes quite a lot of litter particularly in Grove, Aberavon, Rhondda and [the west end of] Morgan Roads. I have written to the franchisee Ajmal Khan about it:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Since your store has opened the amount of litter in Grove and Aberavon roads has increased significantly. Whilst we are grateful that you have signage asking your customers to dispose of their litter responsibly, we would like to encourage you to go further and ask your staff to routinely litter pick from around the vicinity of your shop. We are able to provide you with free litter grabs if this helps. The litter (which is clearly marked with the Subway branding) is particularly bad towards the middle to top end of Aberavon Road. 

I look forward to hearing from you.

John White
LBTH Recycling Champion

Mile End Old Town Residents' Association

I received the following reply:

John thank you for bringing this to our attention and yes we do very much try to promote our customers to use bins provided. It is unfortunate that people seem to find it acceptable to litter and ruin the streets bringing down standards and making it less pleasant for future generations. We do try and litter pick around the shop and we will make more of an effort to promote using bins. It is good to see yourselves providing free grabs and we would appreciate any help towards solving this issue. As I am sure you are also aware that Subway is a franchise so every franchisee pays his/her own costs and we are burdened with many of them with the main one being rising labour costs and the government forcing ever rising minimum wage which makes it hard to have a designated litter picker due to increased costs. Thank you again for bringing this to our attention and if you visit the store with the litter grabs one of my staff will take them from you. Thanks

Kind regards

Ajmal Khan (Franchisee)

I have now dropped off a couple of litter pickers (supplied free of charge via Mayor Johnson and the GLA who happen to set the London Living Wage at £8.80 vs the minimum wage of £6.30).

Thanks to Cllr Josh Peck who also contacted the Head of the LBTH's Clean and Green team about this following complaints from MEOTRA.

Let's see if we notice a difference.