Falkirk district students win cash for sharing views on litter emergency

Jack Stewart won £100, while Emma Sneddon received £50 after winning a prize draw run by environmental charity Keep Scotland Beautiful as part of a campaign to reduce on-the-go food and drink litter and increase recycling rates.

They are both studying at the college’s Falkirk campus.

Students and employees at the college were asked to consider how they could help reduce on-the-go food and drink litter which accounts for 63 per cent of all litter counted across the college’s three campus sites.

The results confirmed that 78 per cent enjoyed at least one item of on-the-go food or drink each week. But 75 per cent indicated that the damage that food and drink litter could do to the environment and nature was of concern to them and 85 per cent were concerned about the amount of littered packaging from food and drink on-the-go.

The campaign - a collaboration between Keep Scotland Beautiful, Forth Valley College, local authorities in Stirling, Clackmannanshire and Falkirk and Coca Cola Europacific Partners - aims to raise awareness of, and help tackle, the single-use packaging generated from our love of on-the-go food and drinks.

To reduce on-the-go food and drink litter across all three sites bins have been wrapped with engaging messaging and billboards, digital online advertising and increased recycling provision has been deployed during the seven-week campaign targeting Forth Valley College students and staff and the wider community until the end of March.

Laura Watson, Campaigns Officer at Keep Scotland Beautiful, said: “We all enjoy on-the-go food and drink, whether it is a sandwich, a bag of crisps, a chocolate bar or a can of juice. A quarter of litter recorded in our national surveys comes from food and drink packaging and 90 per cent of people agree that litter is a problem across the country.

“So, it is vital that we encourage everyone to consider what they do with their packaging. Ultimately, we want to see people recycling their packaging, but at the very least we are urging everyone to bin their waste and not to drop or chuck it – further deepening Scotland’s litter emergency.”

Forth Valley College Principal Kenny MacInnes, said: “We are delighted to be helping Keep Scotland Beautiful with their survey and their litter and recycling intervention delivery plan. This will raise awareness of the proper way to recycle among young people in the Forth Valley area, and where better to do that than in Forth Valley College. This initiative ties in well with our Sustainability and Net Zero plans and we are hopeful the awareness raised through this campaign will enhance our own efforts to recycle.”

Councillor Bryan Deakin, Falkirk Council’s spokesperson for Climate Change, added: “We are fully behind this campaign to encourage behaviour change towards what people do with their waste packaging. It doesn’t take much to find a recycling point or take any packaging away until they can recycle it properly. Litter costs us dearly in both our environment and the resources that are dedicated to cleaning up afterwards. There’s no excuse.”

The campaign to inspire behaviour change to reduce litter and increase recycling is being delivered by Keep Scotland Beautiful, a key delivery partner of the National Litter and Flytipping Strategy, and part funded by CCEP.