'Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence' when it comes to litter

Ahead of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games 2026, which promises to be an outstanding celebration of world-class sport, culture and everything that makes Scotland’s largest city special, members of #TeamKSB supported a series of litter picks on the River Clyde which marked the culmination of a global effort to remove 1million plastic items from Commonwealth nations.

We’re extremely proud to be playing our part to clean up the River Clyde and surrounding areas ahead of Glasgow hosting the Commonwealth Games, linking to our Upstream Battle® campaign with a series of clean up events, and in this blog, Paul Wallace, our Head of Operations unpacks the importance of collaboration to tackle litter, the unexpected finds, the confirmation that what we collect from the water is different from what we find on land, and what this may tell us and the need for more investment to plug litter sources and inspire behaviour change.

It’s a Tuesday morning in mid-July.  The sun is shining.  The majestic River Clyde is sparkling.  As ever in Glasgow, the jokes among those taking part on the water and along the banks are flowing and everyone is up for taking part.

Volunteers from Coca-Cola Europacific Partners have been joined by representatives from the Royal Commonwealth Society, Commonwealth Sport, and the West Boathouse on the banks of the River Clyde in Glasgow Green and in the water by a team of intrepid paddle boarders and canoeists supported by Central Scotland Adventures.

As they, and colleagues and trustees from Keep Scotland Beautiful, piled the litter pulled from the river at the collection point it became apparent to me that what had been collected was not necessarily what I had expected.  A discarded office chair, an abandoned misplaced trolley, a suitcase, and of course there were – not just one, but three - iconic traffic cones! 

Our annual public perception surveys always identifies the most commonly seen litter items as food and drink containers, wrappers and packaging alongside plastic drinks bottles and cans.  While our latest Upstream Battle® citizen science report recorded plastic snack packets as the number one item recorded by our waterways in Scotland!

So where were they?  It was clear the land-based litter-picking teams had gathered a large number of bottles, cans, glass and soft plastics, but what we pulled from the water was different – it was heavy, it was dirty – it had probably been there for a long, long time.

The quote attributed to Carl Sagan popped to mind -

A crisp wrapper fluttering in the breeze moved ever closer to the river as I mulled over this quote and what it meant with my colleague Heather.   A litter picker swooped in and a cry was heard – ‘Gotcha!’ the crisp bag swiftly deposited in a black bag.

The litter picker moved on motivated by removing another small item from polluting our environment – off on a mission to capture the next offending item and prevent it from entering the River Clyde, where it could travel out to sea – potentially harming one of our marine wildlife icons. 

As I looked at the bags of waste collected from the paths alongside the river it became clearer to me that we need to do more, and act more urgently to capture the soft plastics, the light empty bottles and cans before they blow in to the river, flow out to sea and possibly wash up at the renowned litter sink which blights Arrochar. 

While the larger, heavier items we removed from the water provided a stark reminder of the disregard we show our green and blue spaces, the lack of light weight litter recovered from the water showed me we were too late – it had probably already washed down stream and out to sea.

One of the things that makes working with keep Scotland beautiful so special is the amazing range of people and organisations we get to collaborate with.

Supporting litter picks across Scotland is something we at Keep Scotland Beautiful do a lot of, we often organise events for corporate clients, we frequently attend clean ups organised by other environmental groups and we inspire and support thousands of communities to litter pick every year.  And there is always one outstanding thing I take home from the events – the sense of collaborative achievement.

This event was no different, and yet it possibly marked one of the largest global collaborations to remove litter as it was the final event of the Commonwealth Sport and Royal Commonwealth Society’s Clean Oceans Plastics Campaign, removing one million pieces of plastic from entering waterway across the Commonwealth.   The initiative ran alongside the King’s Baton relay, which also made an appearance at the event with former Team Scotland cyclist and Commonwealth Games silver medallist, Charline Jones.

Litter is a global problem which doesn’t respect national borders.  So, it’s vital we collaborate, across nations, stopping litter at source and cleaning up, just as the litter picks linked to the King’s Baton Relay have done.  We’re proud to have supported the final event which saw the millionth piece of litter captured - showing what’s possible when we all work together.

As we look to the future, we know we must harness this feeling of positivity.  Anything is possible if we all just take the first steps – and those that joined us on, and beside the Clyde this week, and at the range of other litter picking events we have planned with corporates as part of the Commonwealth Games clean-up effort, have done just that. 

They have reinvigorated me and my colleagues to not only support the action on the ground, which is critical to raise awareness, engage, and clean up litter polluting our country, but to influence policy, test interventions and call for sustained funding for national campaigns that can really start to change habits and behaviours leading to a litter free Scotland.