A band of 18 enthusiastic dancing volunteers joined environmental charity Keep Scotland Beautiful at Portobello Beach on Sunday (12 September) to rid the beach of litter and kick off the charity’s ‘Source to Sea’ week. The litter-picking crew donned their headphones, tuned-in and removed rubbish from the seaside.
They removed lots of small plastics, including cigarette butts, as well as broken glass and bits of clothing left in the sand – a common issue on popular beaches. As well as removing litter from the beach, the purpose of the litter picking party was to raise awareness of how litter left on land can make its way into the sea to pollute our oceans.
The event was organised as part of the charity’s My Beach Your Beach and Treasure your River campaigns, in partnership with Keep Porty Tidy, who go out daily to blitz litter from the beach and prom.
Treasure Your River, created by environmental charity HUBBUB and delivered by Keep Scotland Beautiful, has been targeting litter from source to sea along the River Forth this summer.
The event was also supported by Oscar’s Gelato on the Porty prom, with complimentary gelato and other refreshments offered to volunteers.
Now in its fourth year, the My Beach Your Beach campaign aims to support bathing water quality at a selection of beaches, including Portobello, Fisherrow Sands and Kinghorn Harbour beach on the east coast.
The campaign does this by promoting beach stewardship among locals and visitors and encouraging good habits that can affect bathing water quality, both at the beach and indoors.
This summer’s pre-season litter survey, carried out by Keep Porty Tidy for the My Beach Your Beach campaign, found over 110 items of litter along a sample 100m stretch of beach and prom.
The majority of this litter was drinks and food related rubbish, highlighting the need for people to bin their ‘on the go’ food packaging or take it home.
Greta Elliott, from Keep Porty Tidy, said: “The silent disco litter pick was a lot of fun and a great way to get people involved in keeping our beautiful beach clean and litter free.
“Hopefully it will help encourage others to do the right thing and make sure their rubbish ends up in the bin rather than polluting the beach.”
Georgina Massouraki, Campaigns Officer at Keep Scotland Beautiful, said: “Beach litter is a huge environmental issue, not only blighting our communities but also washing out to sea, where it breaks down into microplastics, harming wildlife and marine ecosystems. This silent disco litter pick was a fun way to draw attention to this issue and hopefully reach a wider range of people.
“Our My Beach Your Beach campaign is designed to help improve the quality of bathing waters by asking people to bin their litter, bag and bin their dog poo and not to feed the gulls.
“We have been delighted to work with Keep Porty Tidy on the campaign in Portobello and hope that beach users will take notice and be more thoughtful about the impact they can have on the sand and sea.”
Cllr Lesley Macinnes, Environment Convener at The City of Edinburgh Council, said: “We’re proud of Edinburgh’s beautiful beaches and so we’re very grateful to the litter pickers who worked so hard at the weekend to help us to keep Porty beach clean. I love that they had fun in the process of keeping fit and entertaining visitors as they danced along the beach.
“Our cleansing teams provided them with the equipment they needed to safely remove discarded litter and we’ve made sure the waste collected has been taken away. Our teams have been extremely busy throughout the pandemic working to keep Porty and the rest of Edinburgh clean and tidy and it’s great to see the Porty community taking pride in their area and helping them out.
“I’d ask everyone visiting any of our beaches to respect our local communities and environment by using the bins provided or by taking your litter home with you.”
Read more about My Beach Your Beach:
https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/community-and-place/my-beach-your-beach/
Read more about Treasure Your River:
https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/treasure-your-river/
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