Call for volunteer litter pickers to look at deposit return scheme in Scotland
The Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland wants people to collect litter in the same street or area every month.
Countryside campaigners are looking for volunteers to collect and monitor litter as part of a project aimed at assessing the impact of Scotland's new deposit return scheme.
The Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland (APRS) pushed for deposit return to be introduced with its Have You Got The Bottle? campaign.
Now with deposit return due to come into force in August, the charity is urging Scots to help it collect "vital data" on the impact it has.
When the scheme comes in, shoppers will pay a 20p deposit when buying drinks in cans and bottles, with this cash then refunded to them when they return their empty containers.
The APRS is looking for regular volunteers who will visit a local area - such as office grounds, school grounds, a street or countryside path - and collect litter there for one hour, once a month, for the next two years.
But the charity is also urging people to collect data on a more ad-hoc basis, whenever they pick up litter.
Jo McFarlane, education and public engagement manager at the APRS, said: "This is a great project to get involved in if you are looking for something to get you outdoors and making a difference in the new year, and especially if you care about reducing litter in our towns and countryside."
Surveys of litter on beaches, compiled by the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), show that 93% of clean-ups found drinks-related litter, with Ms McFarlane adding that deposit return could have "a dramatic effect on the number of drinks containers abandoned in streets and countryside too".
She continued: "Countries that have already introduced deposits, like Norway, Estonia and Croatia, have seen a dramatic decrease in bottles and cans littered and a huge increase in recycling rates, so we are calling on people to get involved, log what they find, and help show the impact Scotland's system will have."
The APRS will be working in partnership with the MCS and its Source to Sea litter survey to gather information about drinks containers found in litter before and after the introduction of deposit return.
Kirsty Crawford, a volunteer and community engagement manager for Scotland at the MCS, said: "It's brilliant to be working with the APRS again on collecting vital data to show the need for a deposit return scheme for bottles and cans in Scotland.
"We have decades of data on the types of litter found on UK beaches, showing the desperate need to bring back deposits across the UK to protect our wildlife from drinks-related pollution, including cans and bottles.
"We hope to see a drop in these types of litter once the Scottish scheme is implemented in August 2023. With our volunteers, we'll be able to monitor its success and keep campaigning for ocean positive policies."
Fiona Ware from Edinburgh, who has just begun volunteering for the survey, said the introduction of charging for plastic bags had shown that "policy changes can make a real difference to reducing the litter that blights our countryside and coasts".
She added: "I am delighted that the bottle and can deposit system will be going live in Scotland in 2023 and I hope the results of the APRS deposit return litter survey will encourage the rest of the UK to adopt similar schemes in the future."