3378 Volunteers Cleaned Up Highland
3rd July 2012
Keep Scotland Beautiful mobilised 3,378 volunteers to clean up Highland as part of Scotland's National Spring Clean.
2,612 children and 766 adults from Highland were amongst 117,734 volunteers from across Scotland who gave their time between 1 April and 31 May to support National Spring Clean, run by Scotland's leading charity for the environment, Keep Scotland Beautiful.
In Highland, groups from community councils, schools, student volunteer groups, youth groups, businesses, guides and scouts, environmental trusts, council staff, and churches all pulled on their yellow Keep Scotland Tidy tabards and spent time cleaning up different locations. The result of all the hard work is that 65 public gardens, school grounds, woodlands, nature reserves, rivers/canals/loch-sides, beaches, country parks, road verges, villages and town centres in Highland will be litter free for summer.
Picking up thousands of discarded juice and alcohol bottles, cans, crisp bags, cigarette ends, filled dog poo bags and fast food wrappers, volunteers in Highland also uncovered some more unusual items - these included a windscreen wiper, a pair of glasses, TVs, tyres, a harbour fender, a rusted spring mattress, and rope.
Across the nation, using litter pickers and gloved hands each person collected on average one and a half black bags of waste - this means that 120 bags of litter were collected during every hour of every day of National Spring Clean.
Many groups also recycled the litter they collected this year, helping reduce the amount going to landfill and supporting Scotland's zero waste targets. Zero Waste Scotland provided funding to support the campaign.
Helen Darvill, Environmental Quality Coordinator at Keep Scotland Beautiful, said: "I am astounded by the number of people who have given up their time this year to keep their own parts of Scotland beautiful. It is a real achievement that 3,378 people from Highland came out in force to take part in National Spring Clean 2012, and I am sincerely grateful to everyone who has been involved - from the local authorites, businesses, schools and nurseries, community councils, and enthusiastic individuals - you all deserve a massive pat on the back. Keep Scotland Beautiful shares the government's vision for Scotland to be cleaner, greener, safer and more sustainable, and everyone involved in National Spring Clean is helping Scotland achieve this."
National Spring Clean 2012 may be over but people can still organise and take part in clean up events throughout the rest of the year. Clean Up Kits can be ordered online at www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/cleanupkit. In addition, Zero Waste Scotland has also today launched a new £250,000 fund to give community groups, as well as local authorities, businesses and landowners an opportunity to trial innovative projects to prevent littering in the first place. For more information about the fund, visit www.zerowastescotland.org.uk/litterfund
Related Businesses
Related Articles
The first Highland-wide virtual jobs fair held last month has proved to be a hit with participants and businesses. The week-long virtual event, which was delivered by the Local Employability Partnership for the West - The Highland Council, Skills Development Scotland, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Department for Work and Pensions, Developing the Young Workforce and UHI North West and Hebrides was timed to coincide with Scottish Careers Week 2024.
The Service Centre will close at 5pm on Tuesday 24 December, re-opening on Friday 27 December (opening times 8am to 5pm). It will be closed on 1 and 2 January and open 8am to 5pm from Friday 3 January 2025.
Members have considered an update on the Council's medium term financial plan and the impact of the UK and Scottish Governments’ budgets on the coming year’s funding settlement. The position is currently looking more positive than initially planned for, however more detail needs to be worked through.
In November, The Highland Council launched a public statutory consultation to seek views on the proposed introduction of a Visitor Levy scheme across the Highlands. The Council has announced an extension to this consultation period, which will now give businesses, visitors and communities until 31 March 2025, an additional seven weeks, to take part and have their say.
In the light of the financial forecast for 2025-26, Highland Council is inviting you to tell us more in the budget preparation for the coming financial year. The budget engagement builds on extensive budget participation which took place in the winter of 2023-24.
The information provided is a summary of reports from operational staff and is intended to give a general indication of typical conditions in each area at a point in time. It is not intended to imply that any individual route is entirely snow and ice free and drivers must be aware that conditions can change rapidly and make their own assessment of conditions for travelling.
Every year Highland Council invites all tenants to have their say on the rent levels for the following year. The Council encourages everyone that lives in a council house to take this chance to have their say.
Communities and Place Committee met yesterday (Wednesday 27 November 2024) and Members agreed the Highland Local Child Poverty Action Report which includes actions for delivery in 2024/25. Reducing child poverty is a priority for the Council and its partners.
The information provided is a summary of reports from operational staff and is intended to give a general indication of typical conditions in each area at a point in time. It is not intended to imply that any individual route is entirely snow and ice free and drivers must be aware that conditions can change rapidly and make their own assessment of conditions for travelling.
Members of the Highland Council's Community and Place Committee have given their support to an action plan focusing on the operating of public conveniences over the next 10 years. Whilst not a statutory function, the Council is the main provider of public conveniences located throughout Highland, operating 74 sites.
