A summer of learning, celebrating and caring for Portobello Beach has come to a close, as environmental charity Keep Scotland Beautiful reports on its My Beach, Your Beach campaign.
Launched in mid-July, just as we were easing out of lockdown, the campaign aimed to help improve water quality at six of Scotland’s well-loved beaches through targeted interventions to encourage better attitudes and behaviours.
Now, as we look to the autumn and winter, it is heartening to see that despite 57% of people thinking dog poo is an issue and 35% believing litter is an issue at Portobello Beach, 66% of those surveyed in the area have said they are willing to pick up litter when visiting the beach to leave it cleaner than they found it.
The successful campaign raised awareness of the potential impact on bathing water quality by dog fouling and encouraging gulls by feeding and leaving litter.
The third year of the My Beach Your Beach campaign was a little bit different – extending it to two more great beaches, Irvine and Troon – and also taking community engagement online in the face of lockdown measures, to encourage those who live locally to get involved and celebrate their beach.
Campaign messaging appeared on the bins along the promenade, encouraging people to dispose of waste responsibly.
This was supported by anthe interactive online programme aiming to celebrate and engage people with their local beach, through information about local environment, landscape and heritage, quizzes, photo galleries and a virtual ‘Doggy Ambassador’ competition, reaching nearly 10,000 people.
Although impact monitoring was not possible this year, 90% of locals surveyed had seen at least one campaign message and 83% said that they would like to see more campaign activity like this in the future. Last year, the campaign achieved a 53% reduction in litter as compared to the previous year and a 40% reduction in dog poo too.
Paul Wallace, Campaigns and Innovation Manager at Keep Scotland Beautiful, said: “We know that, in many cases, people only need a small nudge to do the right thing and take better care of their local environment.
“This summer, our local neighbourhoods became even more precious to many of us. For those #LuckyToLiveHere by the beach, the unprecedented pressures of more people taking holidays and day trips in Scotland, consuming more single-use items and take-away food and using limited services, such as toilets and bins, were felt.
“We’re grateful to both council staff and members of local community groups like Keep Porty Tidy, Friends of Porty Prom and Portobello Timebank for working to keep the beach clean for everyone to enjoy and are delighted to find that, following following this summer’s campaign, over 60% of people from communities locally have shown an interest in picking up litter at Portobello beach when they visit, to leave it cleaner than they found it.
“Cleaner sands can lead to cleaner seas – a win, win for our beach environments and communities.”
Cllr Lesley Macinnes, city council Environment Convener, said: “Our beaches and other open spaces have been so important for people to enjoy in recent months as we’ve all had to adapt to the coronavirus restrictions.
“It’s really important then that we look after them and keep them clean and tidy for everyone to enjoy. This campaign has been really helpful in supporting the hard work of our waste services department getting across that message and celebrating Portobello.”
The campaign, funded by the Scottish Government and supported by SEPA, was led by Keep Scotland Beautiful alongside its Upstream Battle and Clean Up Scotland campaigns and annual Beach Awards.
All six of the beaches selected for this campaign have faced challenges in improving the quality of their bathing water as measured by SEPA, and research confirms a significant link between behaviour on the land and the cleanliness of the local seawater.
Find out more about Portobello Beach by visiting its campaign web page at www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/mybeachyourbeach/
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