Environmental campaigners visit south of Scotland for riverside clean-up

'Keep Scotland Beautiful' joined people in Lockerbie for a community clean-up along the river Annan as part of a national campaign to tackle water pollution.

The environmental group's 'Upstream Battle' campaign aims to spread awareness of marine litter and encourage people to understand the importance of keeping their rivers clean. 

A litter pick and litter survey took place on along River Annan in Lockerbie on Sunday morning, and the data collected will contribute to a national database which will give a picture of the problem areas and hotspots across the country. Those areas can then be targeted with the aim of stopping Scotland's waterways, marine environments, and ecosystems from being polluted with rubbish dumped on land.

"In 2022, Keep Scotland Beautiful declared a litter emergency," explained Fiona Gallie, campaigns officer.

"And we also know that 80% of marine litter comes from land and it's making its way down stream down rivers to the sea."Of course when it gets into the sea it's affecting the marine environment, it's killing wildlife, and threatening habitats and ecosystems."So our Upstream Battle campaign is to tackle marine litter at source along rivers in Scotland."It started on the river Clyde in 2018 but we've been spreading it across Scotland so we're down in Lockerbie because we want to get an idea of what the litter problem is across all of our rivers."So the surveys that we gather across Scotland will contribute to a national dataset which will hopefully give a better picture of what's going on and where the problems are, where the hotspots are."

Sunday's event was the culmination of a week of action carried out by Keep Scotland Beautiful, and further activities will be taking place in February and March.