The businessman behind the Littergram internet app, which gained global headlines when Facebook threatened legal action over its name, has confirmed he plans to continue with his popular environmental initiative.
Danny Lucas, who is based in Tonbridge, said he has received huge support for his battle against the social media giant which, claimed the Littergram name was too close to that of its Instagram photo-sharing application.
Facebook originally gave Mr Lucas until April 28 to change the name, but more than a month after the deadline passed, the Littergram creator has yet to receive any response to a personal plea he made to Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg.
Mr Lucas said: “We haven’t heard back from Facebook directly. The only thing we have heard was the statement given to the BBC’s One Show a few weeks ago.
“That essentially said they would not be doing anything. So we are taking a position of it being no news is good news.”
He said the Littergram app, which was devised to teach young people the importance of a tidy environment through people reporting incidents of litter through location-tagged photo-sharing, had been successfully adopted by Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council.
Mr Lucas said: “We’ve had a lot of response from all the media coverage that there has been over this, with calls from India and America asking about Littergram, as well as other councils across the UK wanting to use it.
“The great thing about our app is that it could be used anywhere in the world, but we can’t really focus on that until we have this sorted out with Facebook.
“One of our main aims is to work with major brands on promoting being tidy, because 33 per cent of all rubbish comes from packaging.
“So if we can get these companies using our logo and promoting being tidy, then it will help improve the litter crisis that is costing us a billion pounds to clean up,” said the crusader.
There has been an especially encouraging response from schools.
As previously reported, after a successful event at Woodlands Junior School in Tonbridge, a letter was sent out to more than 5,000 UK headteachers, urging them to get involved with the Littergram initiative. “
