AN IT consultant new to the city has taken it upon himself to wage a digital war on litter – by mapping every bin and litter hot-spot in Newport.

The seeds of this ambitious project were sown when Steve Preddy, 46, moved to Newport from Bristol just under a year ago.

An IT consultant working for TATA, Mr Preddy explained he noticed “a bit of a litter problem” when he arrived in Newport.

He decided to tackle the problem in a different way.

“I thought about starting litter picks, or joining a local group. But I realised it’s a bigger problem than that. I wanted to make a big dent in the problem.

“What I’m trying to do is look at it on a city-wide scale, and come up with solutions that will solve the problem across the city.

“This year I’ve been gathering data because we need that information to beat this problem.”

Mr Preddy started by mapping litter hotspots across the city, and followed that by mapping bins in Newport too.

His third focus is finding out what areas of Newport are already well covered by litter picking volunteers, housing association litter picks and this council’s street teams.

“I want to compare bin locations with data on where the hotspot areas are, and where lots of litter picking already takes place. The aim is to see if there are any obvious areas in the city as a whole getting neglected.

“Showing people the evidence will have an impact.”

Mr Preddy has now set up a website to publish collected data, and is asking for litter warriors to chip in with their city knowledge.

“What I’ve tried to do with the hotspots mapping is concentrate on the open spaces in the city first,” explained Mr Preddy.

“Now I’m going back to fill in the gaps. There are big areas of the city that I haven’t visited at all yet.

“I’m a keen walker, so I’ve done it all on foot so far.

“If people are able to send me information about locations with bins or litter it will be easier, obviously.”

Mr Preddy is asking people to send him locations of bins and litter hotspots, including a rough amount of litter, not already mapped on his site.

He is contactable via the contacts page of the, which can be found at https://newportlitter.wordpress.com/contact/.