THIS week's community column comes from Nik Turner, Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park litter prevention manager.

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Four months into my role as the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park’s litter prevention manager, I thought I’d tell you a little bit about the ‘spring clean’ which has been taking place across the National Park in recent weeks.

Since starting my new role, I have been getting to grips with litter within the Park, understanding who is responsible for what, what activities are already taking place and uncovering the “grot-spots” where litter is a real issue.

Littering isn’t a problem unique to the National Park. Indeed, environmental charity Keep Scotland Beautiful warns that, across Scotland, littering is the worst that it has been in a decade. Littering is a complex behaviour and there isn’t a “silver bullet” that anyone has found to fix it.

However we are determined to lead the way in the war against litter and it is one of the key priorities within our Five Year Plan.

Over the whole of April and May, staff, volunteers, communities, businesses and partners across the entire National Park rolled up their sleeves, dusted off their litter pickers and came together to give the National Park a spring clean to send a clear message: littering is not acceptable within our beautiful landscape.

You may already have seen the coverage of our joint A82 clean up with Argyll and Bute Council, where we collected more than 220 bags of litter from only a 15-mile stretch of road. And we supported communities and partner organisations to take action too. Our staff also got stuck in and took part in a mass litter pick earlier this month, clearing more than 60 bags of litter from popular visitor sites.

The Spring Clean is almost over but we’ll be continuing to work with partners and communities to keep the Park looking spick and span.

So why not join us? If you’re visiting the National Park then try out a #2MinuteCleanUp. Make sure to tag us on social media so we can share successes @lomondtrossachs. Together, we can make sure litter is no longer a blight on our landscape.