What you can do to prevent pollution: top tips

• Reduce car travel – try walking, cycling, public transport or home working to reduce pollution from your travel and improve Leicester’s air quality

• Take waste motor oil or unused paint to the tip – never pour it down the drain!

• Prevent noise nuisance – use our tips to control noise

• Avoid bonfires – compost your garden waste or turn larger woody material into a log pile wildlife habitat.

• Report pollution – including rivers and drains, black smoke from bonfires or chimneys and fly-tipped rubbish.

• Protect watercourses – get permission from the Environment Agency before releasing used or contaminated water or any liquid into a watercourse, onto land or into a storm drain.    

• Use oil interceptors where there is a risk of oil or fuel getting into watercourses through storm drains.

• Introduce a Travel Plan – to reduce pollution from company travel, distribution of goods and employees’ travel to work.

• Follow the Waste Duty of Care – to make sure your company waste is safely stored and disposed of to prevent it polluting the environment.

• Protect air quality– carefully manage your company’s air emissions, such as from boilers and furnaces, vehicles or industrial processes to minimise pollution and meet legal requirements.  Businesses must not use bonfires to burn waste.