Final Upstream Battle and Nature Calls workshop celebrates joint action against marine litter
15 June 2022
On 15 June we held the final workshop in our series with Scottish Water, as part of our award-winning campaign on the River Clyde, Upstream Battle and Scottish Water’s Nature Calls and Top up from the Tap campaigns.
Upstream Battle calls for all individuals, communities and businesses along the River Clyde to commit to helping improve the quality of our marine environment with a focus on ‘source to sea’ litter. As well as collecting citizen science data and taking action to clean up litter, the campaign raises awareness of the fact that 80% of all marine litter comes from land. Scottish Water’s Nature Calls campaign calls for a ban on wipes containing plastic.
The workshops took place online and in locations along the River Clyde (Inverclyde, North Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire) during 2021 and 2022.
Hosted at the Glasgow Science Centre, the final workshop was a networking and collaboration event for community groups engaged in tackling litter along the River Clyde and its local waterways. The workshop captured the current priorities of the groups and identified future activities to raise awareness, gather evidence and inspire action.
The workshop followed an exhibition at the Glasgow Science Centre of the entries from our recent marine litter art competition for early years, primary and special needs schools. The competition invited pupils to research the problem of ‘source to sea’ litter on the Clyde and produce a creative piece of art to share their findings.
The workshops have brought together a range of participants from community groups, schools, organisations, local authorities and individuals who are all passionate about tackling litter and protecting the environment of the River Clyde and its local waterways.
At the workshops there have been engaging discussions on perceptions and behaviour about why people litter and data captured from litter surveys on a national and local perspective has been reviewed. The groups, organisations and schools have also shared details of their activities in tackling litter in their local area.
Barry Fisher, our CEO, said, “We know that 80% of marine litter comes from land and that we need to tackle this problem upstream. Our stats also highlight that 88% of people believe that litter is a problem nationally, while 70% believe it is an issue in their local area – this is unacceptable.
“For over 30 years we have taken action to reduce marine and coastal litter and played an important role in the development of Scotland’s first Marine Litter Strategy which was published in 2014, and the most recent Marine Litter Strategy consultation which ran until 22 March, and which we submitted a response to.”
“We were delighted to host this workshop as part of our series of joint events with Scottish Water. Our Upstream Battle campaign has been dealing with litter on the River Clyde since 2019. The support of everyone who came along to this series of workshops showed how much they care about this issue by making a real commitment to taking action, is inspiring and shows that together, we can make a real difference.”
