Allan Merry is back in his favourite drinking den.

The retired GP is a regular visitor to the little clearing in the woods below Ardrossan Castle. But not to bevvy. He comes to clear up the bottles and cigarette butts others leave behind. And he loves it. 

“There is a carpet here and it has been here for a long time,” he says as he expertly extracts an old beer can from a bush. “I would quite like to remove it but it is a bit big.”

Dr Merry eyes dart about looking for even the tiniest speck of plastic, metal or paper. There is no shortage of waste in this damp spot: not just booze containers and cigarette paraphernalia but also “bags for life”.

The medic knows that getting out to tidy up his community is great for body and soul. He helps run North Ayrshire’s  Three Towns Clean Up Crew, one of the many units in Scotland’s army of volunteer litter-pickers. 

The Herald: Army of volunteers in Ardrossan. Photo by Gordon Terris.Army of volunteers in Ardrossan. Photo by Gordon Terris. (Image: Newsquest)

The local council provide his team with bags and pickers and they often target spots public clearing workers do not reach - like the back lanes and bushes in the show of Ardrossan’s imposing fortress.

Posses like Dr Merry’s are being rounded up across the country. They are key to the nation’s strategy to tackle litter and Keep Scotland Beautiful or KSB, the environment charity, helps organise them.

Some local authorities areas are ramping up volunteering. North Lanarkshire, for example, has gone from one hub to 19 this year alone. More people in the area collected litter in 2023 than in the last five years combined.

Helen Loughran, convener of the council’s Environment and Climate Change Committee, said volunteers, on top of her own workers’ efforts,  made “a real contribution to keeping our communities clean and tidy for everyone.” 

But litter-pickers are also helping themselves.

Catherine Gee, KSB’s deputy chief executive, said: “Studies have shown how beneficial being outdoors can be to a person’s mental and physical wellbeing which, when combined with working together with like-minded people, can lead to a sense of camaraderie and new friendships.

“An extension of this is taking part in litter picking activities. Whether working individually or as part of a group, litter picking is simply good for the soul. There’s no doubt that time spent litter picking is time spent well and this positive behaviour, whilst beneficial for your health and wellbeing, is also an essential way to tackle Scotland’s litter emergency.”

Back in Dr Merry’s drinking den, Ian Cassidy agrees. The 66-year-old volunteer, also retired, goes out at least six days in seven, usually to clear the mess on nearby Stevenston Beach. 

He has been doing so since he was first moved to action by all the trash thrown on to the coast during a storm in 2014. “It’s just great for your physical and mental well-being” he says. “I do not like the mess but I do like the results of a clean-up.”

Mr Cassidy reckons even one volunteer can make a meaningful difference. He keeps a log of every sack he fills with litter and pulls out a spiral reporter’s notepad with personal and group tallies. 

His running total tops 10,500. That, he calculates, amounts to around two million individual items of litter, most small but including a terrifying algae-covered tailor’s dummy.

Dr Merry admits there is one drawback to being a volunteer: he has learned how to notice rubbish. And how much of it there is.

“You get a knack for collecting,” he says. “Once you start picking litter, you see it everywhere.”