Almost 35,000 people across the country took part in more than 3,000 litter picks during #SpringCleanScotland 2026 – Scotland’s largest mass litter picking event.
Spring Clean Scotland takes place every year, encouraging people to organise or join a litter pick to clean up their local area.
Across Scotland, this year saw:
- 34,702 people involved, including 17,883 young people
- 3,340 clean up events across the country
- 46,877 bags of litter collected
- 309 tonnes of litter picked
- 69,404 volunteer hours spent litter picking
The Education team organised a series of lessons every day for a week, open to all ages, to inspire pupils to join the fight against litter. The week kicked off with lessons in English and Gaelic on reducing textile waste, encouraging pupils to organise swap events in their schools.
A fantastic story time lesson from Georgina Stevens, author of ‘Stella and the Seagull’, who read an
excerpt from her book was organised and took pupils through a fun recycling quiz.
The challenge for the week was for pupils to organise litter picks in their schools. In total, 110 litter picks were organised, 101 bags of litter were collected, and five schools won a £100 voucher for Muddy Faces.
A total of 247 schools registered across all lessons covering 29 local authorities; 121 classes attended the lessons, which is equivalent to 3,025 pupils (2,375 for English-speaking lessons, 25 for Gaelic lessons and 625 for the bilingual assembly).
