AN ENVIRONMENTAL charity is calling on people in Helensburgh to take pride in the Clyde by joining them in a week of action next month.

From September 14-20, Keep Scotland Beautiful will be running activities every day for people to take part in along the length of the river and its tributaries, including the River Leven.

As part of the ongoing Upstream Battle campaign, these will aim to help reduce the amount of litter that ultimately reaches the sea.

Community groups, schools, businesses and individuals are also being encouraged to arrange their own activities.

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As well as joining in a planned event or organising one of your own, residents can help spread the word on social media, give two minutes of the day to pick up litter and recycle or bin it, and complete a litter survey of the local waterway.

Paul Wallace of Keep Scotland Beautiful said: “We hope that volunteers will come out in droves and take part in one of the organised events, or arrange their own.

“A drinks bottle or crisp packet carelessly discarded on our streets has a fair chance of ending up in our rivers and polluting the oceans.”

Community-led beach cleans are already a familiar feature of life in communities around Helensburgh and Lomond.

The latest in the monthly series of Helensburgh beach cleans, organised by the town’s community council, takes place at 10am this Saturday, August 31.

Similar events are held, on a regular or occasional basis, in Cardross, Rhu, Garelochhead, Kilcreggan and Arrochar.

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The stretch of shore around Helensburgh, the Rosneath peninsula, the Gare Loch and Loch Long has long been regarded, along with many other communities in the wider Firth of Clyde, as a magnet for marine litter due to a combination of winds and currents which wash up large volumes of litter around the area’s shoreline, some of it coming from hundreds, or even thousands, of miles away.

The campaign has also been backed by high-profile ambassadors, funders and organisations, including BBC Blue Planet cameraman Doug Allan who helped formally launch it.

He said: “It’s never been more important to look after our planet. What we do on land directly affects the health of our rivers and our seas and everything that lives in them. It’s time to get serious about the source of marine litter.”

For more information about the campaign, visit keepscotlandbeautiful.org/upstreambattle/week-of-action/.