A Wishaw man has been hailed for their sterling work in clearing up one part of the town.
John Smillie, have spent a number of months clearing up land near Ryde Lane in Coltness.
On various trips John, a member of Coltness Community Council, has cleaned up dozens of bags of rubbish and on the last clean-up, earlier this month, an incredible 66 bags were collected making the total up to over 200 bags of rubbish as well as larger items being removed.
John told Lanarkshire Live : “Unfortunately we weren’t able to organise a group clean-up due to COVID, but there has been a lot of bags collected.
“A lot of it was bottles and cans so I would like to see CCTV in that area to discourage people from going into the woods.
“We have deer, foxes, badgers and other wildlife in there. I would like to see more education in schools to show young people the damage littering like this can have on wildlife.
“The council were great while I was cleaning up by taking all the bags of rubbish away.”
John and other volunteers have been trying to rid Coltness of the scourge of fly-tipping for a number of years.
In 2020, before lockdown hit, a major effort was made to clear up an area in Glen Road and in woodlands near the Carrick Hall.
Coltness Community Council chairman, John Carr, told us : “John has taken this on and he’s done a great job; he deserves a medal.
“The community council have always tried to help in these types of clean-ups but it’s a credit to John’s hard work that this area has been cleared.
“We would rather we didn’t have to and people didn’t fly-tip but sadly I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
“We were delighted North Lanarkshire Council were able to assist in getting rid of all the bags and other items that were left.
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