Keep Scotland Beautiful Launches Week of Action to Tackle Roadside Litter

Keep Scotland Beautiful Launches
‘Week of Action’ to Tackle Roadside Litter

The environmental charity Keep Scotland Beautiful is encouraging people in the Dumbarton and the Vale areas to join them for a ‘week of action’ from 12^th- 20^th May to tackle roadside litter. 374 people from West Dunbartonshire took part in the first month of the Clean Up Scotland 2018 Spring Clean, and now the charity wants to get even more people involved. Almost 4000 people have already signed up for the week of action, from 68 schools, communities and businesses across 21 local authority areas.

The problem of roadside litter

Over 20% of the spring cleans have targeted roadside litter, which is an increasing problem in Scotland. There are more than 100 bottles and cans found on every mile of road in Scotland, and over 80% of roads are considerably affected by litter. The campaign’s message is ‘Give your litter a lift, take it home.’

20,000 people across Scotland have already helped to clean up litter from the places where they live and work, and the number of willing volunteers is increasing year upon year, much to the delight of Keep Scotland Beautiful. The charity’s operations director said that the level of support they have received from the people of West Dunbartonshire has demonstrated that people are aware of the problems litter can cause, and they want to take action on it.

The campaign

The campaign is fuelled by these statistics about Scotland’s roadside litter problem:

• 82.8% of roads are affected by litter
• 52% of Scots have seen someone throw litter from their car
• 68% of Scottish adults think roadside litter is a problem
• 88%of Scottish adults think that roadside litter gives people a bad impression of Scotland

Keep Scotland Beautiful has joined with a number of other organisations to make the campaign as successful and wide-reaching as possible. These organisations make up the Roadside Litter Campaign Group, which meets quarterly to discuss the effects of their efforts and to make plans for the future.

The campaign group includes Transport Scotland, Zero Waste Scotland, Visit Scotland, road operators like Scotland TranServ and Amey Highways, local authorities, haulage associations, community safety organisations, and the Package Recycling Group Scotland.

You can find out more about the campaign here.