Community Cleaning Initiatives

(Beaches, Countryside and Public Spaces)

Guidance and advice for community groups.

Did you know that 80% of litter in Scotland’s marine environment is transported there from land by rivers, drainage, or wind?

Here on Orkney, we do an annual ‘Bag the Bruck’ where beaches and coastal areas are cleaned by willing volunteers. This usually takes place during April of each year.

Throughout the rest of the year, if you pick up some rubbish whilst walking on the beach, please take it home and either put it in your own bin or take it to your nearest Household Waste Recycling Centre. Also, we’d ask that you make the same arrangements if you’re organising something on a larger scale. For the larger beach cleans, if you really can’t manage to take the bruck away, please contact Environmental Services to discuss your options.

Bagging the Bruck to keep our beaches verges and communal areas clean is a fantastic thing for the public and organisations to carry out to keep Orkney looking beautiful, it is also an ideal opportunity to recycle too. During the clean you can still separate the metals and plastic bottles and recycle them (after a rinse of course). Organising an event to do a clean? Maybe split up the teams to tackle Rubbish, Metals, Plastic Bottles, the result being the area is clean and recycling done at source, a bigger win for the environment!

To assist with this any large debris or organised cleans can be reported once completed to reportdebris@salmonscotland.co.uk you will need “what3words” to pinpoint the exact location as well as a picture of the debris to be collected. They will contact a local fishery to collect it.