Volunteer army doubles in size to clear rubbish

May 21 2009 by John Rowbotham, Hamilton Advertiser

THE number of Lanarkshire people taking part in last month’s national Spring clean doubled compared with last year’s event.

And on Wednesday, the litter pickers, many of them school children, were given a pat on the back by the organisers, Keep Scotland Beautiful.

The Advertiser also received praise for publicising the sterling efforts of county folk in our Clean Sweep campaign, run in conjunction with KSB and South Lanarkshire Council.

No fewer than 51 groups comprising 3072 volunteers joined the campaign in South Lanarkshire last month, compared with the 2008 total of 29 groups and 1894 people.

Among those taking part in the 2009 event were Stonehouse Brighter Village Group who tackled litter problems there.

Sandford and Upper Avondale Community Council filled 22 bags of rubbish when they targeted rubbish blackspots in their area.

Pupils from Quarter Primary, Auchinraith in Blantyre, Glengowan, Hareleeshill and Craigbank in Larkhall, along with Townhill in Hamilton, were among the many schools who held litter-picking exercises at and around their schools. Larkhall-based youth charity the Machan Trust also did their bit, holding a series of clean-ups throughout the area.

Youngsters from the Hyper Cyber Youth Project in High Blantyre tidied up the village’s Kirkton Park and eco warriors from St Peter’s School, Hamilton, made a clean sweep of their school grounds.

In North Lanarkshire, 26 groups comprising 2187 volunteers took part in the 2009 litter-pick events, compared with the 674 volunteers and seven groups in 2008.

Among the initiatives was a clean-up by school children at Strathclyde Park.

Across Lanarkshire, 5259 people took part in the 2009 spring clean bid, far in excess of the 2568 volunteers who were involved 12 months earlier.

A total of 57,639 people across Scotland took part in the latest spring clean campaign organised by KSB.

Volunteers filled the equivalent of 28,819 standard wheelie bins with rubbish.

A spokesman for the charity was delighted with the increase in turnout in Lanarkshire and said: “I am sure that every bit of publicity given to the campaign by the Advertiser has helped.

“There was a massive jump in the number of volunteers taking part in North and South Lanarkshire and that will be down, to a large extent, to the work you have done in the paper.”

South Lanarkshire Council community resources committee chairman Gerry Convery said: “We extend a very big thank you to all those volunteers who gave of their time and worked hard to clean up the nooks and crannies around our streets, villages, schools and parks to make South Lanarkshire a cleaner, brighter place in which to live.

“I would hope that, in the future, everyone – adult and child alike – will take a great pride in their environment and bin their rubbish.”

He added: “I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Advertiser who have helped tremendously to combat the environmental crime in our area by highlighting the efforts made by both the council and volunteers to tackle our problems of rubbish and environmental crime.”