About the Campaign
During April 2010, over 83,000 volunteers across the length and breadth of Scotland took part in a litter pick of their neighbourhood – taking practical action to transform their local communities for all to enjoy.
Through National Spring Clean, KSB encourages as many people as possible to pick up litter at some point during the month of April: a time of year when people are giving their homes a clean sweep and starting to get back out into the great outdoors after a long winter. It's an ideal opportunity for groups around the country to unite in a common cause and make a concerted effort to clean up the whole of Scotland.
Each year volunteers from community councils, schools, student groups, youth groups, businesses, guide and scout companies, environmental trusts, council staff, churches and others pull on their yellow Keep Scotland Tidy tabards and help to clean up their local area. Public gardens, school grounds, woodlands, nature reserves, river banks, loch-sides, beaches, coastal paths, country parks, villages, city centres and road verges have all benefited from a real spring clean - just in time for the summer.
To help groups get started KSB provides organisers with a free Clean Up Kit, which includes badges or stickers, protective Keep Scotland Tidy tabards, a poster, black refuse bags, clear bags for recycle-ables, competition details, and other useful information about how to organise a clean up and have a safe and fun event.
How the campaign's grown
Scotland's biggest clean up for six years took place during April 2007, when Keep Scotland Beautiful re-established its National Spring Clean campaign. Over 11,500 people took part, between them gathering enough litter, if tipped out, to cover the grass at Hampden Stadium with rubbish at least half a metre deep.
By 2008, participation in what had quickly established itself as a highlight of Scotland's environmental calendar, had almost doubled to 20,000 volunteers in that year alone. Between them they gathered enough black bags full of litter to line the Royal Mile in Edinburgh from the Castle Esplanade to the Scottish Parliament building 12 times over. That is an awful lot of litter that could otherwise still be blowing around Scotland today.
The campaign has continued to grow from year to year, with a total of 57,639 volunteers taking part in 2009: nearly three times as many as the previous year! Between them they organised 1,082 litter picks and collected enough litter to fill 28,819 standard wheelie bins.
...And in 2010, volunteers broke the all-time record when 83,000+ of them took action to spring clean their neighbourhoods.