Scotland's beaches are beautiful. But we need to look after them.
We need to reduce letter, and improve bathing water quality to protect the environment for the people who use it. Keep Scotland Beautiful has been protecting Scotland species, our sand and sea through the My Beach, Your Beach campaign.
The My Beach, Your Beach campaign for the last five years has done amazing work here on the West Coast of Scotland and also through in the east coast of Scotland.
The My Beach, Your Beach campaign has been led by Keep Scotland Beautiful and delivered in collaboration with SEPA, beach managers, community groups, Scotrail, and local businesses to encourage beach stewardship empower people to get involved and to improve bathing water quality.
So, what is bathing water quality and why is it important?
Bathing water quality is a measure of how clean the water is at designated beaches in Scotland. Actions people take at the beach and in their home can influence bathing water quality.
Between 2018 and 2023, our My Beach, Your Beach campaign has been helping to protect the sand and sea on seven beaches on the east and west coast of Scotland. You may have seen My Beach, Your Beach on Portobello Beach, Fisher Rose Sands or King Horn Harbor on the East Coast on Ayr, Troon, Irvin or Saltcoats Ardrosan beaches on the West Coast.
The key campaign messages are put your litter in the bin, or take it home to recycle. If you are at the beach with your dog, make sure you bag it and bin it. Don't feed the gulls, leave them be.
We have loved being involved with litter picks with these groups and schools at the campaign beaches over the years.
So we've got a really good mix of people who come out and volunteer but also work on their own. We like to promote, hello puppy, we like to promote people picking up dog poo and trying to keep the beaches clean for summer use.
To help share our message far and wide, working with Scotrail helped us to improve our reach of the campaign messages to visitors traveling to the campaign beaches by train on both the east and west coast.
Each year, a social media campaign looked for a doggy ambassador from campaign beaches. This gave the community a chance to get involved with their local beaches, and helped to reinforce the "Bag it and bin it" message to dog owners.
In 2020, the covid pandemic set a new and unique context for the My Beach Your Beach campaign. Our campaign website evolved to highlight the wonders of our beaches, and encourage locals to get involved by participating in quizzes and sharing photos of their beaches.
My Beach, Your Beach campaign is part of a much wider set of programs that Keep Scotland Beautiful are running right up and down the country. We're incredibly passionate about ways in which we can work with communities, businesses, and organisations to make a real practical difference to the places that we love and to help us feel that we're making a difference in keeping Scotland beautiful.
