Spring Clean Scotland: working together to Keep Scotland Beautiful

In this episode we chat to Heather McLaughlin from Keep Scotland Beautiful, about  Spring Clean Scotland, the campaign which brings together people from across Scotland to tackle the litter emergency.

We hear how this initiative rallies communities, schools, business and individuals to clean up and look after their local areas. She shares invaluable tips for taking part in, or organising, impactful clean-up events, the critical importance of data collection in driving policy change, and the need for a cultural shift to sustain environmental action all year round.

Then join us on the banks of the River Tay as we chat with Ross Dempster of Beyond Adventure, who reveals how initiatives like recycling, litter picking and carbon offsetting are integrated into their outdoor activities business. He shares stories of local cleanups, explains the benefits to both wildlife and individuals from volunteering in nature, and emphasises the ongoing need for community involvement in preserving Scotland's landscapes. 

More Information

Keep Scotland Beautiful
Spring Clean Scotland 2024 held between 15 March to 28 April, brings together people from across Scotland to tackle litter.
Beyond Adventure

 

Transcript

Kirstin:

Hi and welcome to Make Space for Nature from NatureScot, the podcast that celebrates Scotland's nature, landscapes and species. I'm Kirstin Guthrie and in each episode we'll help you learn more about our amazing natural world. In this episode, Tim Hancox and I chat to Heather McLaughlin, Campaigns Coordinator for Keep Scotland Beautiful, about the Spring Clean Scotland project and what we can all do to help clean up our beautiful country. I then head to the banks of the River Tay in Aberfeldy to meet Ross Dempster, Managing Director of Outdoor Adventure Company, Beyond Adventure, to hear how they're integrating sustainability into their business and taking action on litter. 

So hi Heather, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for joining us today. I'm just going to ask you first off, can you just explain to our listeners what Spring Clean Scotland is and what you're actually asking or encouraging people to do?

Heather:

Yeah, so the Spring Clean is something Keep Scotland Beautiful have coordinated for a long time now. I've been at KSB for seven years and it predates me and I guess it's our response to the litter emergency, which we declared a couple of years ago now. Our data is showing that litter is getting worse and we know through our polling that this is something people really, really care about, so I guess the Spring Clean is our way of saying here's something we can all do together to tackle this problem. So this year it takes place between the 15th of March and runs until the 28th of April, and we're simply asking people to litter pick in some capacity and if they can't, help spread the message and help us collect data through some surveys too.

Kirstin:

Great, that sounds like a brilliant thing that everybody can do. And can you share some of the most impactful initiatives or projects perhaps that have previously been undertaken? Perhaps looking back at Spring Clean Scotland 2023. 

Heather:

Yeah, last year's Spring Clean went very, very well. We had over 30,000 people take part across the whole country. So that had an event in every local authority. I think it was around 1,700 events that took place as part of the month of action. And within that, I guess what we're seeing is a rise in marine base letter picks. And that's still coming off the back of Blue Planet Two, which feels like ages ago now and under our own Upstream Battle Campaign. The other thing we're seeing is a huge increase in the number of businesses wanting to take part and wanting to join local community groups. So that's really encouraging to see. And I guess what I like to see, the numbers are great, but actually what over the years what we tend to see is whilst we coordinate a national effort across Scotland and our effort contributes globally and internationally too. Within Scotland, the sort of local efforts, so over in Inverclyde this year, there's a big Clyde beach clean happening coordinated by a local group there, and every year we see the Great Angus beach clean happening throughout our Spring Clean. So it's quite nice to see that whilst we coordinate nationally, there's pockets of activity throughout Scotland as well.

Kirstin:

And just when you talk about marine cleanups, does that cover beach cleans or is it actually on the water?

Heather:

We count everything. So we have a lot of people who obviously are getting to their local beaches and cleaning up there. But thinking more about the inland cleanups and stuff on rivers, so 80% of marine litter comes from land, so we talk about actually preventing it from even getting out there in the first place and sort of going along a river path or getting onto the water itself.

Tim:

That's so great that there are so many people participating and, you know, there clearly is a lot of people who care enough to try and keep things clean and avoid that kind of litter or pollution where possible. Could you let us know what you do to encourage communities or individuals to set up and organize their own cleanup events?

Heather:

Yeah, I think firstly whilst the spring clean obviously is a month, a six-week period of action, there's litter picks happening year-round, our campaigns act year round, and I know there's Individuals, groups out there who have a monthly letter pick, for instance. I guess a spring clean acts as the time of the year if you're only going to get involved once join now, or for those groups regularly doing it to use this as an anchor to get people involved. Surprisingly, maybe it's not hard to get people to take action as I said we know people care about this issue and we know this activity taking place across Scotland. So all we actually need to do is talk about the benefits and why people should litterpick and what the issues are, I guess, if you don't litterpick. So litter, beyond just looking unsightly, damages local neighbourhoods, it's dangerous for wildlife, it's expensive to clean up for local authorities, and so we're helping that, and actually in having a clean neighborhood, so post litter pick, the benefits are beyond just that, you know, it's about encouraging people to enjoy their local green spaces, enjoy going down to the local beach, which has a knock on benefit to mental and physical health and wellbeing. So it's not hard to call the reasons why to litterpick, I guess more fundamentally and practically, we have the guidance to make sure people know how to keep safe. It is simple, but there are obviously things we encourage people to do to make sure they're keeping safe. And beyond that, we incentivise people to get involved. Anyone who registers to litterpick this year goes into a prize draw to win vouchers for Helping Hand Environmental, and then finally, we're not afraid of inspiring a little competition. So we also have our litter league for young people across Scotland to get involved and compete to see how many bags they can collect.

Tim:

That's great. Nothing like a bit of competition to get the kids involved as well. So you say it's easy, I'm sure you're underselling some of the difficulties that you and your colleagues have. Could you let us know some of the common challenges that are faced by a group or community who want to set up their own litter pick and or cleaning event and how to overcome those? 

Heather:

Yeah, I guess the main question we get asked is where do I get the equipment from and how do I keep safe? So what we tell people to do is the first point of call is always your local authority, again, assuming that most places that you're going to litter pick is public land. So local authorities across Scotland are a key partner for the Spring Clean. A lot of them have equipment they can loan out to groups or individuals. And they're also the people who will organise an uplift of whatever you collect afterwards to make sure it's not sat out. But as well as local authorities, as part of our short response to the pandemic a few years ago, we set up a network of community clean up hubs. So there's 200 hubs across Scotland, and these are  groups, businesses, organisations like housing associations, who have equipment and contact details publicly available for individuals or groups to reach out to, to borrow equipment but also ask for support and so that that's what I would encourage people to do and I guess what we want to see rather than pockets of action is people speaking to one another so that they can collaborate. And if you're maybe planning an event and the day before that, that same group are doing the same location to think about how you coordinate that for a little bit more.

Kirstin:

So you've covered how you work with local authorities and local councils. But how do you work with private companies or organisations to try and help include more people and widen the initiative even further?

Heather:

Yeah. So I guess this emergency, this litter emergency that we've declared isn't any one person's responsibility. We need every sector to get involved in trying to tackle this problem, both from source and prevent it, but also in picking it up. And so we're seeing every year an increase in the number of businesses looking to take action, whether that's in isolation as part of like a corporate volunteering day or whatever it might be, or asking how they can join a local group. And that, that's music to my ears. That's the best way I think for them to get involved. So what we can do is sort of help join the dots a little bit between the groups that we're aware of across Scotland and whenever a business gets in touch who they can maybe work with. I guess the other mechanism to ensure that sort of collaborative approach is we do work with other NGOs too. So we work closely with the Marine Conservation Society who at the opposite time of the year have their beach clean and weekend. And we also work closely with Sustrans Scotland, who have obviously a network of volunteers and looking after the National Cycle Network. And so really the Spring Clean has been built to be something that everyone can get involved with, whether that is, as you mentioned, corporates getting out on the ground, or whether that's NGOs or anyone else, with networks of people that we can reach out to.

Kirstin:

It sounds like you're covering all bases there, from schools to individuals to local community groups, which is brilliant. And you've spoken about the litter emergency, and at NatureScot, we're always - and certainly for the Make Space for Nature campaign - focusing on trying to get people to do more for the climate and the nature emergency. However, it can be slightly depressing and overwhelming for some people but taking action really can help. So what's your advice for people when they feel helpless about these kinds of emergencies?

Heather:

Yeah, so you mentioned the nature emergency, the climate emergency, and I've mentioned the litter emergency, and I think it is worth saying that these aren't three different emergencies. they're all interconnected. And I guess we use the term, there is a debate as to why, and if we wanted to use the term when we first declared it, but I think this is something that we as a charity have been tackling for a long time, we know that there's community groups who've probably been acting longer than we have on this issue. And as I said, our polling shows that 90 percent of people think this is a problem across Scotland. So I think the term emergency has been used to make sure it's given the standing it deserves as a problem that needs to be tackled. But on the reverse of that, we don't want people to think this is beyond their reach. Every action that anyone can take as part of the Spring Clean or beyond can help us. So whether that's lifting one bottle off the street that an animal can get stuck in, whether that's picking up a piece of broken glass a dog or something could walk over, anything can actually help and taking away from the fact that you're picking up a piece of litter or a piece of waste, people seeing you take action actually can have quite a big impact on them. They're seeing that it's not a council officer who's getting paid to pick up litter that it's a local volunteer someone they might even know and taking a small step to potentially have a big impact.

Kirstin:

Yeah, I think that's also what we try and encourage people to do with Make Space for Nature. We always have top 10 tips. So it's kind of breaking down the bigger asks to individual actions and just trying to encourage people to do their bit for, whether it's litter or nature. It's all, as you say, it's all linked. So yeah, just any kind of action makes a difference at the end of the day.

Tim:

Heather, at the risk of sounding like I'm about to quiz you on your KPIs, which I'm really not, can you let us know how you measure the success and the impact that these initiatives are having?

Heather:

Yeah, so as part of the Spring Clean, we ask people to register their activity with us. And I say activity quite lightly because sometimes it is an individual going out every day, collecting a bag, or it can be these sort of mass cleanups with 50 odd people on a beach. But we ask people to tell us what they're doing, and use our Clean Up Scotland member sites, so they can register an event, whether in advance or retrospectively, and say, there was 10 of us, we went out and we did it in this location for this long. And that's how we get the data that we need to say, look, there's 30,000 people out there, this was how many bags we think were collected across the whole country. I think that can be challenging and people understandably want to just get out there rather than sit at a computer and tell us what they've been up to, but we can't emphasise enough I think the importance of having an understanding of what's happening across the country. You know, there's data out there on the cost of the public sector, that the amount of money they spend dealing with litter and waste. But then we also have this increasing number of volunteers litter picking. So it's really important to understand that even with that huge cost of stuff that volunteers are doing rather than the local authorities or the other duty bodies out there. So we really are urging people, if this is the one time of the year that they tell us what they're up to, this is the time to take it.

Tim:

And interesting I'm sure, some of the data that comes out as far as the types of litter and rubbish that's getting picked up can only be useful for local authorities or anybody else as far as the kinds of waste. I immediately start to think about things that other people who've joined us on the podcast to talk about like the used vaping things and, and stuff like that, that we are picking up and are causing frustrations.

Heather:

Yeah, so I guess what the member site can also be used for is to collect data through citizen science. And as part of the Spring Clean this year, we're also asking people to take some time and it doesn't even need to be as part of a litter pick. You know, if you're walking down to the shops, you can probably do this. We have 12 categories that we're looking to tally against to help us and people across Scotland collect evidence that we need to try and get some of the legislation over the line. So the vaping's a good example of where this has succeeded. You know, Laura Young, ourselves at ASH, Scotland and MCS, working together to amplify the problem and talk about the problem and using data to back up those anecdotes. We've obviously now got a commitment to a ban over the line and there's other pieces of legislation out there that as a charity we're trying to advocate for to make sure they happen, so they tackle this litter problem from source.

Tim:

That's brilliant. Do you also have any memorable moments or success stories from past cleanup events that have made you particularly happy or proud that you could share with us?

Heather:

Yeah, I guess every year we tried to, within the Spring Clean, obviously as staff, get out and about and join groups where we can. A few years ago, one of the biggest events, and it was a full week of events rather than one event, we had a plastic fishing punt come up from England from a charity called Hubbub, and we worked with Scottish Canals and McDonald's to do an east to west water and land based litter pick. Every day we were in a different place along the canal network and in the canals, I'm sure they won't mind me saying this, there's always something exciting to find. I think we found a trike one of those days and goodness knows what else so that was a public facing event that we went along to. Internally at KSB we also do our own litter picks and this year rather than doing a full staff litter pick near our offices we've taken inspiration from, I think you say Spogomi, that's how it's spelled, the Spogomi World Cup, which is a real thing that happened, I think it was in Japan last year, and where teams of four have an hour to collect as much bags of waste as possible. So Internally, we've been competing and my team went out last week and have 11 bags on the table.

Tim:

Most bags or most interesting find?

Heather:

Most bags as the official winner, but most interesting find gets another prize, I think.

Kirstin:

That's a great idea. I think we should all do that challenge, to be honest. Even within my household, that would be quite good fun. And I'm just thinking about how do you keep the momentum going? I know this is obviously a campaign and you're trying to push as hard as you can for everybody to get involved, but you want this to be a happening year-round, as you said. So how do you keep it going? I mean, I've got into the habit of picking up litter whenever I'm out, but I do sometimes feel that, you know, people are like “well it's not my litter, I'm not picking it up”. You know, “why should we have to clean up after others?” But it's that kind of attitude I suppose that we do need to try and change as well. I think it is changing, but what's your advice for that side of things? 

Heather:

Yeah, and I think that's, I mentioned the sort of the team litter pick which we did last week.  I found our hot spot, or grot spot, whatever you want to call it, and we went down and thought, well, this is actually really bad. How on earth are we, the four of us, going to tackle this in an hour? So our approach was actually to almost siphon off the small section that we could take up a four and then have to follow up and make a difference. So I think otherwise you can get stuck in this rut of, I'm picking up, I've spent three hours here and I look around and nothing's changed. And we have heard, you know, actually a school kid cycled past us and stopped and said, oh, we did this last year. And it's a year later in the same state. So it can get really difficult. I think what we try and do is, we do celebrate the Spring Clean. We have a report that goes out in May sometime that talks about the amazing effort, thanking volunteers, and I know local authorities and other duty bodies will do the same thing. And I think what I would say to volunteers who are maybe feeling a bit fatigued or a bit frustrated is there's nothing wrong with stopping for a bit and sort of recollecting yourself if you're frustrated, that's totally fine, and taking a break, because I think that is needed, and we are seeing, and I don't think it's just litter picking volunteers, I think there's a bit of volunteer fatigue across the whole country at the moment. A lot has been asked of volunteers over the last few years, and we do appreciate that. And the other thing I would say is, yes, we're litter picking, and yes, we have a spring clean every year, but we are, as a charity, trying to prevent litter picking, the need for litter picking. Now that is a long journey, but you know, as I said, as part of this Spring Clean, we're asking people to collect some data on food packaging so that we can start pushing our way through to the government, to elected members, to talk about a reform on the extended producer responsibility, to ensure that people putting these materials on the market pay. So there's a few different approaches that we're taking and we want to take people on that journey with us. 

Kirstin:

Yeah, absolutely. And it's so important to celebrate, you know, the before and after of whatever area you're covering is, is absolutely, you see it, it's such a great feeling I think everybody gets when, when their area is cleaned up. And you've spoken about some of the initiatives. Is there any other initiatives, you know, that are going on that we, you know, we're aiming to keep Scotland beautiful that you want to talk about as well? 

Heather;

Yeah, I think for us, so the Spring Clean is happening now, but year-round we have, our Upstream Battle campaign. So we constantly see this increase in the motivation behind people who want to tackle ocean litter, marine litter. And in fact, 80 percent comes from land. So our upstream battle campaign looks to tackle that from wherever you are across Scotland. And we kind of see it as a vehicle to connect people who are maybe right in the centre of Scotland, with the coast and with the ocean and know that they can make a difference without having to travel out to wherever the nearest beach might be. So upstream battle sort of has been tapping that on the Clyde and Tay rivers and actually over the last six months we've started building that nationally as well.

Kirstin:

That's great. It's good to hear about all these initiatives and we'll actually be speaking to Ross from one of these anchor groups in the second half of this episode.

Tim:

Thank you so much for coming on today, Heather. It's wonderful to hear about this initiative and I think it's inspiring for all of us to head out and be more aware of the litter, not only to make sure that it gets put in a bin if it's your own, but to pick up what we see and join any initiatives happening because at the end of the day, we'd all love to keep Scotland beautiful.

Kirstin:

So I'm now standing on the banks of the River Tay in Aberfeldy and hopefully you can hear the river in the background. It's a little bit dreich today, a wee bit of rain but we can see the ducks, it's absolutely stunning here, and I'm here to meet with Ross from Beyond Adventure to hear more about initiatives taking place to help Spring Clean Scotland.

So hi Ross, thanks for joining me today. We've heard from Heather about Spring Clean Scotland and she's also highlighted some of the litter cleanups that you do here at Beyond Adventure, but first off, can you tell me a bit about the company and what outdoor activities are on offer here, please? 

Ross:

Good morning, thanks for having us on the podcast as well. Yeah, we do a bit of everything to be honest quite a quite a busy wee place. So we've been open for 25 years this year and yeah, we started off running a lot of expeditions throughout Scotland and the wider world, but also we run day activities, half day taster activities, lots on the water like canoeing, kayaking, paddleboarding we're up in the hills a lot, you know, hiking, doing that kind of thing. We take school groups out with Duke of Edinburgh and like outdoor education and yeah, also mountain biking, ebiking, yeah plenty to keep us out of trouble most of the time. 

Kirstin:

Brilliant. It's a fantastic setting here as well and why not get outside even, even if it's a rainy day, you can still get outdoors and enjoy what's going on. And can you share some specific initiatives or, you know, practices that Beyond Adventure has implemented to help the environment? 

Ross:

Yeah, absolutely. I think when we work in the outdoors as much as we do, it's, you have a real affinity with nature, a real affinity with the environment as well. I'd say, you know, looking after that environment is a thread that runs throughout the whole company. So everything that we try and do is adding to that ethos. And we don't ever want to do something that's going to be detrimental to nature. So yeah, we've got lots of initiatives from, you know, relatively straightforward things like recycling everything, reusing packaging that our products come in, stuff like that. We make sure we carbon offset everything, we’ve got some interesting projects coming up some local companies to do that. And also, yeah, we've already talked about our kind of litter cleanups as well, so looking after not only the riverbanks, but in the water itself to make sure that doesn't turn into marine pollution.

 

Kirstin:

Absolutely. We were talking about that earlier with Heather as well, and I noticed you're an official Plastic Patrol partner. So what does that mean?

Ross:

Yeah. So Planet Patrol are an organization that are based down south and we were approached by them back in 2019 I think it was obviously we didn't do much cause yeah, there was a bit of a thing in 2020. So basically being a Planet Patrol partner, we organise water clearups using paddle boards. So we set dates, people can come along and join in. It's all for free. And yeah, we basically take to the water and we clean up everything we can find during the morning or afternoon whenever we choose to go out. So we've done some on Loch Tay, some on Loch Faskally. They use the river Tay quite a lot as well. Yeah, it's really good fun, but it also makes a massive impact. Planet Patrol are really interesting because you use their app to collate everything that you collect, and you put that into their database, and they actually take that to a governmental level as well, and so they can put pressure on these companies that you know, so if you find, I don't know if I should be naming names, but if you found like 50 Coke cans, you can go to Coca Cola and kind of go, come on guys, do something about this. Yeah, it's an interesting one. It's good fun, but got a real purpose as well.

Kirstin:

Yeah, absolutely. And Heather touched on that as well. It's actually, you know, trying to, I suppose, report the types of litter that is out there and, and trying to get to the kind of source of that as well, which is important.

Ross:

Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, it makes our life a lot easier if you can get to the source of the problem instead of us having to, to pick everything up all the time. But yeah, it's, I think it's absolutely always going to be a need for clean ups as well.

Kirstin:

Yeah, absolutely. And so what role do clean-up efforts like, you know, the Spring Clean events play in Beyond Adventure's commitment to the environment?

Ross:

Yeah, I think, like I say, we've got lots of initiatives to try and help the environment, but one of the really cool things with, you know, the Keep Scotland Beautiful campaigns that we're part of, the Planet Patrol campaigns that we're part of, it's really just raising awareness as well. So you're not only getting out and you're helping out the environment directly, but If, say, ten people come on a clean-up, they'll be talking about it as well. They'll be telling their friends about it. And something like, especially, you know, we're in a pretty rural setting on the lovely part of the River Tay, and to look at it just now, you'd think it was absolutely pristine. But it's not until you get on the water and you can actually see the amount of rubbish that's in there. It's quite surprising sometimes the stuff that you pull out the river, you know, on the banks or on the water itself. And yeah, it's a bit of a wakeup call for some people. Especially, you know, we're quite proud to live in Aberfeldy, this section of Highland Perthshire, we always think it's absolutely stunning and unspoilt, but when you get the magnifying glass out, a lot can come out. So, yeah, I'd say that raising of awareness is really important.

Kirstin:

Yeah, and just on that, What's the most unusual thing that you've found?  Now that you said that I'm going to have to ask you that.

Ross:

Yeah, I mean all sorts of stuff we pull out from like, you know bikes and things like that and hundreds of bits of plastic and litter and everything like that. I mean we had really bad floods here in October and it wasn't part of an official litter pick, but me and Frenchie, who you met earlier, basically jumped on the water with our canoes and cleared up two canoes full of stuff. The caravan site upstream had got flooded and tents and tarps and everything got washed into the water and it was just unbelievable. So we're pulling out things like model boats and wheelbarrows and everything like that as well. So yeah, it was quite interesting, and we're definitely reusing some of that. So yeah, that's in our stores there.

Kirstin:

Well done, you guys, for getting out there and doing that. That would certainly be worthwhile doing. I mean, that'd be a huge cleanup, that, wouldn't it? Whole tents and whatnot.

Ross:

Yeah, it's, it's pretty disgusting. It's manky work. But again, you see what you've taken out and you get that kind of sense of pride. You get that real sense of that you've done something good for the local community because you could see everything hanging up in the trees after the floods receded again. And it was a bit of an eyesore, but also, you know, the environmental impact of that being washed down in the next flood would have been pretty catastrophic as well. So yeah, it's manky work, but we don't mind doing it. 

Kirstin:

Absolutely. And how do you get, you know, people involved with the letter picking? Do you put posters up? Do you put it online? You know, is it community? Obviously, you know, your staff participate, or is it actually people, you know, doing the activities themselves or, or all of the above?

Ross:

All the above, yeah. So myself, our staff are really keen to get involved as well. It's really nice way to kind of give back to the area that gives us so much, you know, so it's where we play, it's where we work as well. And it's kind of the least that we can do. We put it out on social media, it's on our website, everything like that. And I know Keep Scotland Beautiful and Planet Patrol use their own social media to put them forward. But I would say there's a really nice community. A really nice core of people in Aberfeldy that keep on coming back as well. And they see it as their responsibility to clean up the place that they live in as well. And so yeah, word gets around. And there's always people keen to roll their sleeves up, get on the water, and yeah, have a bit of a giggle while we do so, you know. There's always tea, coffee and cake on offer, so.

Kirstin:

I was about to say, it's always a great incentive, isn't it? The teas and the coffees. And how do you keep all this good stuff going. What do you do to educate and I suppose inspire your participants to take action for nature? Obviously they're seeing things out, you know, when they're out on the water, but, but how do you keep it going?

Ross:

Yeah, you can get a bit hacked off if you see, you know, particularly after that flood in October I talked about, it was fairly disgusting and you get a bit fed up, you don't want to go out there much more. But again, you get a lot of kudos, a lot of people say, oh thanks guys, we've been looking at that, we've been wanting to do it. And once you feel that kind of sense of appreciation that you're going out there and doing it, that gives you a bit more energy to go out there and do it again. And I think as well, you know, it’s funny, I keep on coming back to this phrase of ‘be bothered’. And you know, if you see something on the banks, you see something in the river, it's really easy just to turn a blind eye to it and just kind of go, somebody else will deal with that. But to be honest, it doesn't take a lot. To just go out for a half a day and to be bothered to go out there and do something about it. Yeah, I think it's the state the world is in general with environment and climate change. I think more people that will be bothered. It's going to make an improvement to everything. So little by little.

Kirstin:

Yeah, absolutely spot on and you know, we spoke about that as well because even if, for instance, you're on a dog walk or you're out at lunchtime, you know, picking up one, two bits of litter, it's not a massive ask, and I  think some people do think, oh well it's not my letter, and as you say somebody else will pick it up, but actually just pick it up, it's easy, you know, be safe about it obviously, but yeah, absolutely, that's really good to hear. And obviously you've got a fantastic company here, how do you balance adventure and exploration with the need to minimise the environmental impact? 

Ross:

Yeah, it's a really interesting one as well. I mean, so obviously we use vehicles to get to locations for, you know, our expeditions and for going out for day trips or whatever it might be. So using carbon offsetting for that is really important to us. But I think the main one for us is also that kind of, you know, policy of leave no trace wherever you travel and choosing locations that you go to. Obviously after COVID. there's lots of press out there about hot spot areas that everybody was flocking to, places getting trashed and all the rest of it. Thankfully, there's been some great work to educate people about how to use the kind of rural areas of Scotland. But I also think, because we're a commercial provider, we've got a huge responsibility to show best practice wherever we go. And that can be as simple as like, you know, going to, you know, proper car parking sites. It can be making sure that gets shut behind us. But if we're moving through the rural areas of Scotland and like camping along the way. It's like making sure you take everything out with you again. It's a really, you know, you carry all your stuff in, bring it all back out again. It should be a lighter rucksack or a lighter boat afterwards anyway. And yeah, I guess the other thing is, it's like there's so many amazing places in Scotland. You don't have to flock to the same place. So take for instance, The Great Glen Way. It's a beautiful spot. It's a beautiful canoe trail, but just a couple of glens over, there's a really similar kind of journey that you can do there, and you might not see anybody. I'm quite a social person, but, you know, when I'm traveling through like an area like that, I like to be by myself or be with my group as well, and I think it adds into that experience. So we always try and choose areas that aren't getting overused, and that makes a real difference.

Kirstin:

And just thinking about other organisations or, you know, the community you've spoken about working with the community. But are there any other partnerships that you have going with local businesses or organisations that or councils as well that support your sustainability efforts?

Ross:

Yeah, absolutely. So I talked about carbon offsetting there as well. So there's a fantastic new company opening just down the river from us called Call of the Wild. So Hamish and Liberty are starting rewilding their estate that they've taken over there as well. And we've always used Trees for Life, which is an amazing work up the kind of Glen Affric area, and replanting the native woodlands. But I've always been wanting to do something locally as well. So we're working with Hamish and Liberty to choose the trees that we plant really carefully. So we're not only offsetting our carbon, but creating habitats for the wildlife up there as well. So, I think we're going up there in two weeks time to start planting for this year. And, so we've got something crazy, about 400 trees that we're putting on the ground. But, doing it in a way that is actually, improving the area for the local wildlife as well.

Kirstin:

That's brilliant. That's great to hear. Obviously these partnerships are so important you know, for the benefit of nature and climate. And, you know, I suppose litter picking is a great way to clean up areas, but you know, the question we could all ask anyone and everybody, how do we stop people littering in the first place? I mean, schools obviously play a part, education does too, but it's not just kids. So what else can we do? 

Ross:

Yeah, it's always a tricky one, isn't it? I think through Keep Scotland Beautiful I've been to quite a few of the local schools around here, so I give it my time. We take all the litter picking stuff going out. The kids absolutely love it. I mean, it's like they have an absolute hoolie, and it's like a competition to see who can get the most in the stretch of river. But to be honest I don't know if it's because we're in a rural setting, but the kids are pretty clued into it already, you know, they don't drop litter, they understand the importance of keeping the area they live in tidy as well. You know, obviously we've got a road just behind our base that leads into Aberfeldy and the amount of stuff that gets chucked out of car windows still is absolutely unbelievable. And for me, it's the people that do that, they won't be following our social media, they won't be following, you know, the government advice about what to do, how to tidy up or anything like that. I think that's the real challenge, is getting through to the people who - sorry, we've got a heron getting attacked here, in front of us, absolute carnage.

Kirstin:

It's amazing, yeah, a heron was actually getting chased by seagulls. And I think there's an oyster catcher in there somewhere as well. But, wow. They're all joining in.

Ross:

Yeah, so, watch your microphone. But I think for us, it's, it's finding ways of reaching those people. But there's after COVID, you know, with the whole dirty camping problem that, I mean, the ranger service up here is fantastic now and they'll, you know, we work closely with them. So if we see a campsite that's been abandoned or a place that's been trashed, we can then contact them and they'll go and clear that up, which isn't the way it should be, but it's a great step in the right direction. But they can also walk up to people that are camping by roadside or by lochs and start chatting to those guys as well and say, there's a bin just over there or, you know, fill up your car again as you drive back out again. And it's just little by little, hopefully that word will spread.

 

But I should probably talk about the new facility just behind us as well. So we've been working with The Perth and Kinross Council, Visit Scotland and the Perth and Kinross Countryside Trust. And that is a facility not only for getting changed into things, so if you come off the river, or you know, finish the Rob Roy Way, the River Tay Way, you can get changed, have a shower, and things like that. There's public toilets there, there's camper van waste disposal, because that was a big thing that was lacking in the area, and I didn't want to know where people were pouring their waste before that. But that's an opportunity for people to do that, and there's also public bins there now as well, so instead of people just having to put it in a rucksack, there's one of these stops along the way that you can actually get rid of that as well. So it's been a fantastic project with lots of people working on it, to give that infrastructure to Scotland. Because it's getting more popular and popular to get here as well. And it's giving people the right tools for doing the right thing as well.

Kirstin:

Yes, it's providing them, making it easier for them, I suppose. Okay, that's great, and they're lovely facilities. I did have a wee nosy about earlier, so yeah, looking good. But yeah, and what about any success stories or memorable moments, you know, related to litter picking? Obviously you've said about finding various things in the water and whatnot. And also, has there been a noticeable difference in the area? 

Ross:

Yeah, I think certainly after COVID we saw lots and lots more people camping here. That was a big problem back in you know, 2021, it seems like a million years away now. But I think generally speaking it is getting a tidier place is, you know. Saying that, we're sitting next to the river there’s yellow bin bag caught up on a tree, it's driving me insane. I keep on looking at it, I'm going to have to get my boat and go and get that later on. But generally speaking it is getting like a tidier area. I think pollution is lower every year. Our cleanups obviously make an impact in that, but hopefully that is people that are starting to use the area properly. In terms of success stories, it's obviously when we cleaned up after the flood, that was a huge thing because that had been driving the whole community insane, the amount of rubbish that was in the river. But I think also, you know, just after every litter pick, it's seeing people's faces and, you know, that kind of sense of satisfaction that you've spent two or three hours. You've been outside, you've had a bit of a giggle you've tried not to take things too seriously, but also, at the end, whether the council comes and picks up the rubbish or we put it into recycling or put it into bins, wherever it might be, it's just that kind of glow that people get afterwards that they've done something really worthwhile with their day.

Kirstin:

Oh, that's brilliant. It's been lovely meeting you. Ross, and you know, I wish you all the best with your business and what's going on here. It's fantastic. And it does look absolutely amazing. And the sun has come out. We have blue sky.

Ross:

There's blue sky. It's official.

Kirstin:

Yeah. So thanks again.

Ross:

You’re more than welcome. Thanks for having us.

Kirstin:

Thanks for listening. If you're enjoying Make Space for Nature, please follow it on your podcast app and leave a reviewer rating. We'd also love you to tell more people about the series for more ways to connect with and help protect Scotland's natural world. Go to nature.scot.