Edinburgh's silent disco dancers help clean up Portobello Beach

Dancing volunteers joined environmental charity Keep Scotland Beautiful at Portobello Beach to rid the beauty spot of litter and kick off the charity’s ‘Source to Sea’ week.
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The litter picking crew donned their headphones, tuned-in and removed rubbish from the seaside on Sunday, September 12.

The enthusiastic group removed cigarette butts, broken glass and bits of clothing left in the sand – a common issue on the popular beach.

A band of 18 enthusiastic dancing volunteers took part.A band of 18 enthusiastic dancing volunteers took part.
A band of 18 enthusiastic dancing volunteers took part.
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The event was organised as part of the charity’s My Beach Your Beach and Treasure your River campaigns, in partnership with Keep Porty Tidy, who go out daily to blitz litter from the beach and prom.

Now in its fourth year, the My Beach Your Beach campaign aims to support bathing water quality at a selection of beaches, including Portobello, Fisherrow Sands and Kinghorn Harbour beach on the east coast.

The event was also supported by Oscar’s Gelato on the Porty prom, with complimentary gelato and other refreshments offered to volunteers.

This summer’s pre-season litter survey, carried out by Keep Porty Tidy for the My Beach Your Beach campaign, found over 110 items of litter along a sample 100m stretch of beach and prom. The majority of this litter was drinks and food related rubbish, highlighting the need for people to bin their ‘on the go’ food packaging or take it home.

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Greta Elliott, from Keep Porty Tidy, said: “The silent disco litter pick was a lot of fun and a great way to get people involved in keeping our beautiful beach clean and litter free. Hopefully it will help encourage others to do the right thing and make sure their rubbish ends up in the bin.

Environment Convener at Edinburgh City Council, Lesley Macinnes gave her support to the event.

She said; “We’re proud of Edinburgh’s beautiful beaches and so we’re very grateful to the litter pickers who worked so hard at the weekend to help us to keep Porty beach clean. I love that they had fun in the process of keeping fit and entertaining visitors as they danced along the beach. I’d ask everyone visiting any of our beaches to respect our local communities and environment by using the bins provided or by taking your litter home with you.”

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