Total Eclipse of the Arch

A Marble Arch replica has been built from litter collected from the streets of Westminster, London in the UK this weekend, eclipsing the original iconic Arch.

Renowned artist Miguel Romo, who has 10 years of producing world class art projects involving recycling and reclaimed objects, built the mini arch over the course of Saturday and it will now remain on public view for 10 days.

Westminster City Council, with the help of partners the New West End Company and Veolia, commissioned the piece, at no expense to the UK taxpayer, to launch the Your Streets Campaign.

The key part of that initiative is to make people aware that the solution to litter is all about taking responsibility for your own actions.

The arch installation is designed to show how much litter is dropped everyday despite all the bins that Westminster Council provides, and the mess it would cause if it wasn’t for the hard work of street sweepers from Veolia.

Cllr Ed Argar, cabinet member for city management, said: “Clean streets have always been one of the key priorities for Westminster City Council, and will always remain so.

“The council is committed to helping people do the right thing. We have a top quality street sweeping service, but it is time for fresh thinking about how we can all play a part in adopting a more environmentally responsible and financially sustainable approach.

“We all have a responsibility and we all can, and must, play a part in doing the right thing.”

“What this event highlights today is a very serious message. It is about what the council and its partners have to do to keep the streets clean and pleasant, but also more importantly what residents and visitors can do to help.”

To highlight that picking up litter should be a shared responsibility, the council, in partnership with its waste contractor Veolia and leading business group the New West End Company commissioned a Marble Arch scale model completely made out of litter collected from Oxford Street, Regent’s Street and Bond Street in one day – a total of 120 bags.

Veolia’s contract manager in Westminster, Scott Edgell, said: “This is a great initiative that emphasises the huge amount of work we put into keeping the streets of Westminster clean. We hope that it will make people think twice about how they dispose of their litter.”

Richard Dickenson, CEO of New West End Company, added: “London’s West End is the busiest shopping district in Europe welcoming over 200 million visits each year and managing this number of visitors is a huge challenge. Cleanliness and image is key as we are the shop window to the world.

“Keeping our streets clean and safe is what we deliver everyday working closely with our businesses and Westminster City Council. Visitors also have a role to play and sometimes need to do more. This campaign highlights an important message and with the eyes on the world on us in 2012 we need to get the basics right.”

Artist Miguel Romo said of the project:

"The whole purpose of this project is to help raise awareness on the social and moral responsibilty that we all have to our environment.

"I hope that by creating this sculpture right in the heart of London people can realise that a small effort from everyone could make a really big change.

"Other councils should follow suit and highlight the importance of addressing the widespread damage that litter inflicts on our communities."

Facts:

The council and its waste and recycling contractor, Veolia, pick up enough litter from Oxford, Regent and Bond Streets in just one day to fill a 15 cubic metre model of Marble Arch.

If we added in the litter dropped in the rest of Westminster, it would only take two days for us to fill all 864 cubic metres – of a full size replica of this famous landmark.

18,000 tons of litter bin and street waste are collected from the streets every year – almost the weight of TWO HMS Invincible’s (British Aircraft Carrier)

65% (17,000 tonnes) of our street waste is from litter illegally on the ground

Every day, an average of 120 bags are collected just from Oxford Street, Regents Street and Bond Street.

In total 300,000 bits of chewing gum are cleared just from Oxford Street every year.

Four in five (80%) of our residents are satisfied with how well Westminster City Council looks after their street according to our latest survey. 84% are satisfied with the way it looks and 82% by how clean it is.

Westminster spends £14million on Street Cleansing every year