CuikenPenicuik Burn Clean Up

Sunday 27th 9.30am. Meet in Pentland House car park. A chance for you do do your own wee bit to make Penicuik a nicer place to live in. Looking forward to seeing some of the fishes there. Don't be shy now

49 views so far. Wonder how many of the 49 are likely to get their hands dirty on Sunday?

73 views. Come on you know you want to. You can't say you didn't know?

maist o yer 73 is spiderbotts and they dinnae clean nothin

Another fantastic response from Penicuik's finest. 12 volunteers. Talk is cheap. Oh and again, thanks to Admin Andy. Never lets us doon. Where we're all the fishes today? Sunning themselves in some trout pool?

This tiny tiddler was in church. Do you have a problem with that?

I'm sure everyone respects the work you do for making our town a more pleasant place to be but I don't think coming into here once in a while and mentioning a cleanup then the familiar moaning about very few folk turning up is going to make any difference. When you see how many folk appeared on Saturday to support the gala day, they are obviously willing to support things - the problem is, and this is the category that I fall into, the weekends are mine to do what I wish to do and I'm affraid that cleaning up other folks crap ain't part of it... I know if everyone had that attitude then nothing would get done but there is the attitude of charity begins at home and what the eye can't see, it don't care about!!..

Sorry Musicman, but I have heard it all before. Everyone seems to have an excuse/reason for not making any of the litter picks. Any suggestions? Or should we just forget about it, ignore the problem............and have peeps coming on here now and again and having a right good moan about the sate of Penicuik. Plenty talking goes on. Not much action.

I've done a few of Chris's clean-ups so perhaps I'm allowed to comment (from 1000 miles away where you can't get at me!).
First reaction — not to be taken too seriously: "You mean you were doing the Cuiken burn again! We just did it a couple of years ago." So I'm a bit inclined to agree with musicman.
We did two sessions on the Cuiken burn one of which certainly lifted a considerable amount of assorted stuff of assorted sizes and some of which — let's not pull any punches — must have come from gardens at the top of the bank. Why should anyone be expected to go in every couple of years and clear up that crap?
Next reaction — and this is the result of observing what happens this side of the channel not just hearing about it. Penicuik (and every other town and village in the UK) is going to have a litter problem for as long as the creation of litter is acceptable. The main reason why I don't see litter in my village or in our local town (comparable with Peebles) is that people do not walk around the streets eating. Still less drinking out of cans!
[Not that there is any reason for the French to be complacent. The number of cans being discarded is on the increase; it just hasn't yet reached epidemic proportions, at least in the countryside. I can't answer for Paris!]
For as long as children wander to the nearest supermarket at lunch-time and as long as supermarkets insist on putting everything they buy into a paper bag (usually separate paper bags) there will be a litter problem on the route between school and shops.
For as long as parents (who are often no better!) see nothing wrong in discarding your used wrappings the minute you've finished with them there will be a litter problem.
But to solve that requires the sort of fundamental change of behaviour on a par with the wonderful theory that extending pub hours would turn every pub into a continental-style pavement café and all the Scots into responsible sippers of white wine!
I'm not trying to be a pessimist here (I don't need to try on this subject) and I reckon that regular clean-ups can make a difference and thanks to Chris for organising them. It's just that they treat the symptoms not the root cause of the disease and the reason why several thousand people turned out for the Parade (and I assume for Penicuik in the Park as well) last Saturday was because that was fun. Picking up litter ain't fun!
To add one final point: we have an annual village fair equivalent to H&L (but without the horses!) at the beginning of August - Friday to Sunday. I'm happy to bet that on the Monday morning there will not be one scrap of litter anywhere in the area of the stalls or the entertainments. It's just the way it is but is there any reason why towns in the UK should be any different?

By tomorrow afternoon, all of the schools in Penicuik (including Glencorse Primary) will have undertaken Litter Picks in conjunction with the Keep Scotland Tidy campaign. A quick look at the website will show the amount of events which have taken place around Scotland and with great success. However, the same can't be said for Penicuik. One wonders why? Has the spirit gone out of Penicuik. The schools in Penicuik have done their bit. The same can't be said for the residents. Anyone up for a midweek litter if they can't make the weekends?