Keep Scotland Beautiful calls for support to record scale of dog fouling problem

#TurdTag returns this Halloween

Environmental charity Keep Scotland Beautiful is once again looking for individuals and families to get involved with their popular Clean Up Scotland campaign.

#TurdTag will help establish how much of a problem dog poo is across Scotland and comes after Keep Scotland Beautiful data showed that 32% of people across Scotland think dog poo had got worse during lockdown.

Community support during #TurdTag in May showed an average of 12 dog poos every 100m and that bagged dog poo was 1.5 times more common than unbagged. 

The return of #TurdTag during autumn will see if the darker, colder weather leads to more dog poo being left behind whilst also reminding owners to act responsibly and #BagIt and #BinIt even in the wintery months. 

For two weeks, starting on 31 October, volunteers are being asked to identify a 100m stretch of local road, path or walk through a local greenspace and count, then submit information on, the number of dog poos (bagged and un-bagged) that they find.

Results should be emailed to cleanup@keepscotlandbeautiful.org by 20 November 2020 and can also be shared using social media and the hashtag #turdtag.

Heather McLaughlin, Campaigns Officer at Keep Scotland Beautiful said: “Following the success of our #TurdTag campaign earlier this year, we are really keen to encourage as many individuals and families as possible to get out to count dog poos for us again, so we can get a really good understanding of Scotland’s dog poo problem year round.

“We all know that dog poo on our streets and green spaces is a disgusting problem caused by a minority of thoughtless people, so the information we get will form a unique new data set which will be used to increase awareness and drive action to tackle one of Scotland’s worst environmental complaints.”