Tag: Keep Scotland Beautiful

Local groups receive awards for Keeping Scotland Beautiful

The efforts of 14 Edinburgh groups have been acknowledged by environmental charity Keep Scotland Beautiful at an online seminar yesterday.

North Edinburgh is well represented among these green-fingered groups, with awards for Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre, Fresh Start Growers, Friends of Granton Castle Walled Garden, Friends of Lauriston Castle Estate, Friends of Starbank Park and North Edinburgh Arts Gardening Group.

The other capital groups to receive awards are Balerno Village Gardeners, Craigentinny Community Gardening Project, Craigentinny Primary Parent Council, Friends of Morningside Cemetery, Friends of Saughton Park, Inch View Care Home, Inspiring Hillside and Northfield Community Growing Group.

Annually Keep Scotland Beautiful runs two community environmental improvement programmes in partnership with the Royal Horticultural Society; the competitive Beautiful Scotland campaign and the It’s Your Neighbourhood initiative.

In total 197 groups, those who would in previous years have been out creating and maintaining community gardens or allotments, looking after habitats for wildlife and adopting streets, have been issued with Certificates of Recognition for the work volunteers and supporters did manage to carry out to brighten up and pull their neighbourhoods together during this year’s health pandemic.

A full list of the 14 groups from Edinburgh can be found in the attached table (below).

Edinburgh-groupsDownload

Faced with the challenges of 2020, there has never been a more important time to recognise and celebrate the achievements of communities and individuals across Edinburgh. 

Throughout lockdown and the following months, groups have worked tirelessly to improve their communities through horticulture, environmental responsibility and working in partnership for the benefit of residents, visitors and our natural environment. 

Despite circumstances this year, 47 new entrants were welcomed to the network, and although judging and mentoring visits were not able to take place due to restrictions across Scotland, groups were still supported with online seminars, networking events, question and answer sessions and a weekly e-newsletter.

Barry Fisher, CEO of Keep Scotland Beautiful said, “We know that lockdown resulted in many people reconnecting with green and blue spaces local to them.  Yet, it has also been a particularly challenging year for the communities who strive every year to protect and enhance the places they live and work in. 

“We have been amazed by the desire of communities, volunteers and local authorities to stay connected, motivated and inspired by each other, all with a steadfast determination to do things to make a difference, even if this had to be done differently this year.  

“I’d like to thank all the groups in Edinburgh for the efforts they have made to keep Scotland beautiful this year.”

Although many of the groups had to stop or curtail their planned activities for the year, we have been blown away by what they have managed to achieve – whether that be setting up a food bank, encouraging and supporting others to grow their own, creating virtual garden tours, connecting their members through online catch ups and keeping their neighbourhoods bright and cheerful. 

Andrea Van Sittart, RHS Head of Community Outreach said: “It’s truly inspiring that so many Scottish communities continued to support others in need this year.

“From a phone box larder in Muthill to planter kits for others in Inverkip, the groups have shown incredible creativity and ingenuity responding to the needs of their diverse communities through this challenging time. Congratulations to all groups on their amazing efforts.”

If you’d like to join the network in 2021, check out the website for inspiration and details on how to get involved:

www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/BeautifulScotland or www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/IYN

Voting opens to find the UK’s top ten parks

Scots urged to vote for their favourite Green Flag Award park

Scotland’s treasured green spaces are going to the polls, as the vote opens to choose the UK’s top award winning parks. The People’s Choice vote allows members of the public to have their say – selecting the parks that will be crowned the top ten in the country.

Following expert-led judging, Scotland has 77 parks this year with a Green Flag Award to choose from. These include spaces managed by community groups, universities and local authorities.

The voting is open from 30 October to 25 November with winners announced on 3 December.  To vote for your favourite, simply find it on the map at www.greenflagaward.org and click on the vote button.

Last year, Strathaven Park in South Lanarkshire placed in the top ten for the sixth time in seven years and was awarded the accolade of “Scotland’s favorite park”. This year, parks stretching from the Western Isles to the Scottish Borders are all in with a chance.

Jamie Ormiston, Beaches and Parks Officer at Keep Scotland Beautiful said, “Living through a pandemic has made this year particularly challenging, and it has shown us the vital role our green spaces play to our health and wellbeing.

“The Green Flag Award acknowledges the hard work that goes on to keep these important greenspaces available for us to enjoy. We encourage everyone to vote for their favourite Green Flag Awarded park and we look forward to finding out the results later this year.”

A list of Scotland’s Green Flag Award parks is attached.

Park-list-2020Download

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.”

Portobello community embraces My Beach,Your Beach campaign

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/

Western General group is local litter picking hub

As part of its commitment to supporting local communities to tackle local litter issues, environmental charity Keep Scotland Beautiful is creating 20 new litter picking hubs across Scotland by providing free litter picking equipment that will be available for individuals and groups to borrow, following strict social distancing and safety guidance.

In Edinburgh, the Sustainability Committee at the Western General Hospital will receive a kit, making the group the first hub in the Edinburgh area.

You can contact the local hub by email at ECRF.sustainability@ed.ac.uk

The 20 community groups from across the country are the second collection of litter picking hubs established in Scotland, following eleven created last month.

Through these hubs, Keep Scotland Beautiful is striving to empower communities who are frustrated by litter which worsened during lockdown and over the summer. 

Polling commissioned by Keep Scotland Beautiful in June shows that 30% of people think that litter has got worse in their local area during lockdown.

Barry Fisher, Chief Executive at Keep Scotland Beautiful, commented: “During lockdown, many of us spent time enjoying our local parks and green spaces.

“Lockdown showed us how important these areas are to our health and well-being. Unfortunately, a minority of people have behaved in an irresponsible and selfish manner, dropping their rubbish, leaving it for others to clean up and spoiling our beautiful country.

By using the litter picking hubs, people will be able to tackle litter in the areas they care about and help Clean Up Scotland.”

The funding for these Helping Hands litter kits has been provided by Zero Waste Scotland, and will see kits containing ten litter pickers, gloves, bag hoops and hi vis vests to allow people to take part in either individual or two household litter picks. 

The community groups will also be able to access posters and social media content to help encourage people to look after their local places and keep Scotland beautiful.

Iain Gulland, Chief Executive of Zero Waste Scotland, said: “Litter has no place in a circular economy. Discarding resources like plastic, metal and glass not only blights our communities, it also wastes valuable materials that should be being kept in use for as long as possible.

“Whether it has been our local streets, parks, woodland, countryside or coastline, recent months have highlighted how valuable our environment is to so many of us and why it needs to be kept that way.

“It is a shame these are needed, but the litter picking hubs will give communities the opportunity to tackle the nuisance of litter and ensure the areas they love can continue to look their best.”

Further detail of these hubs can be found here on the Clean Up Scotland website: https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/local-environmental-quality/clean-up-scotland/clean-up-scotland-map/

Celebrate Harvest with a One Planet Picnic

Scotland offers some fantastic local and sustainable food choices and this harvest season, Keep Scotland Beautiful is urging you to celebrate it by hosting a One Planet Picnic.

Open to everyone, from schools, businesses, communities and families the initiative, which is in its 8th year, aims to support people from all over Scotland to discover the great tastes of our seasonal food and local harvests.

This year, as we have faced unprecedented circumstances, many of us have discovered amazing local food on our doorsteps, from small egg producers, to local online food markets and milk delivery firms.  Many of us have relied on local food systems and rediscovered our love of baking bread and taking time to plan our meals and cook from scratch again.

Whether you prefer sweet seasonal fruit or locally sourced fish, hosting a One Planet Picnic allows you to celebrate the local food and recipes you love with others – online or in person in small groups.  

One Planet Picnic helps to raise awareness of the sustainable, local and seasonal food choices that everyone can make, as well as reducing food waste, food miles and food packaging.  A One Planet Picnic is good for you, and good for the planet.

Eve Keepax, Education and Learning Officer, at Keep Scotland Beautiful, said, “Last year more than 17,000 people were registered to take part in a One Planet Picnic and as we emerge from lockdown restrictions we would love to invite people to get involved this year. 

“Why not organise a picnic with a small group of friends and make the most of our stunning scenery or a local park, or host an online picnic with work colleagues or family.   A picnic is a great way to come together, it’s environmentally friendly and there is even a prize draw to enter just by registering your picnic with us.”

Register your own One Planet

Picnic at www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/oneplanetpicnic  and access a range of resources including recipes, invitations and posters. 

You will also be entered into a prize draw to win a baking starter pack and baking book donated by the Association of Glasgow Bakers

My Beach Your Beach campaign relaunched at Portobello

Environmental charity, Keep Scotland Beautiful, has kicked off its “My Beach, Your Beach” campaign for the third year at Portobello Beach.

Every summer since 2018 the campaign has worked to raise awareness of bathing water quality and the role that people can play, whether on the beach or at home, to protect the sand and sea at Portobello. From feeding gulls to leaving litter and dog mess behind, seemingly simple habits can cause pollution and put both water quality and beach experience at risk.

In previous years, the campaign has been successful in significantly reducing the incidence of litter and dog fouling – with a 55% reduction in litter between the first and second year of the campaign.

My Beach Your Beach will continue to raise awareness of the potential impact on water quality by dog fouling and encouraging gulls by feeding and leaving litter. In addition, this year, My Beach Your Beach aims to ensure that beaches are not negatively impacted by increased use by locals and visitors alike as lockdown eases.

Portobello Beach joins five others selected for the 2020 campaign, all of which have faced challenges in improving the quality of their bathing water as measured by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA).

Research confirms the strong link between behaviour on the land and the cleanliness of the local seawater, so this year the campaign is more poignant than ever, as we see some of our favourite sites facing unprecedented pressures as more people holiday in Scotland, consume more single-use and take-away food and find services, such as toilets and bin provisions, limited.

Paul Wallace, Campaigns and Innovation Manager at Keep Scotland Beautiful said, “We are delighted to be bringing My Beach Your Beach, with a difference, back to Portobello Beach this year. 

At a time when we have all reconnected with our local spaces, and are starting to visit sites further away for leisure, we know that if the sun comes out our beaches could bear the brunt of a wave of anti-social behaviour.

“The 2020 campaign will take community engagement on-line and encourage those who live locally to get involved and celebrate their beach. But we will still be ensuring the campaign has a presence on the beach too – with the familiar campaign artwork appearing on bins and at key business locations.

“We’re calling for people who are #LuckyToLiveHere and love their local beach to get involved and celebrate what is on the doorstep – starting with a call out to share images and stories about the beach they love with us.”

In addition to old campaign favourites like the doggy ambassador competition and business support packs, new activities for 2020 will include surveys for local people to monitor the litter and dog fouling levels, a Young Reporters competition and educational resources that celebrate the beach. 

Transport and Environment Convener Councillor Lesley Macinnes said: “We’re pleased that My Beach, Your Beach will continue to focus on Portobello Beach this year.

“It’s wonderful that we have such a well-loved beach in the city, particularly in recent months, but as we’ve seen lately, the litter and dog fouling that result from its popularity are unacceptable. By involving local people in celebrating their waterfront, this campaign will help spread the word on the impact antisocial behaviour can have on water quality.”

The campaign, funded by the Scottish Government and supported by SEPA, is being led by Keep Scotland Beautiful to sit alongside its Upstream Battle and Clean Up Scotland campaigns and annual Beach Awards.

Find out more about how you can get involved and contribute to the campaign on your local beach at www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/mybeachyourbeach  

Keep Scotland Beautiful launches new online summer education programme

Environmental charity, Keep Scotland Beautiful, launches new online summer education programme.

Ten brand new interactive online learning courses will be available for young people across Scotland during the month of July. These exciting new online learning programmes have been developed to provide a fun and enjoyable way for young people to continue their environmental learning during the summer holidays.

The courses cover a range of topics and environmental activities which encourage young people and families to explore the world around them and to think how to protect and improve the places they love. Included are courses on Eco-Schools, heritage, food and the environment and climate change, as well as other environmental topics.

Each course consists of a combination of online learning and practical, fun activities, and all those who complete a course will be rewarded with a certificate of involvement.

Registration is now open for each course and the full list, more information and details about how to take part, can be found at: https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/learning

Daniel Barrie, Education and Learning Manager, said: “Following the huge demand for our online environmental education programme during lockdown from both educators and young people, we have developed a series of exciting and interactive courses for children to take part in during the summer holidays.

“These courses will provide a fun and engaging way for young people and their families to explore some important environmental issues, such as climate change and sustainable food, and the work completed can contribute towards their school’s next Eco-Schools Green Flag award. We have something exciting available for all ages – from nursery through to S6.”

As well as the online summer courses, Keep Scotland Beautiful will also be providing environmental education support to educators once blended learning begins in August. This will build on the existing partnership with E-Sgoil and will include a range of online learning activities for pupils coupled with professional learning for staff.

Climate Challenge Fund now open for applications

The Scottish Government’s Climate Challenge Fund (CCF) is open for a new round of applications.

Funding is available of up to £100,000 per organisation, per year for the next two financial years 2020-2022. Continue reading Climate Challenge Fund now open for applications