Single Spey River Clean

The first Single Spey River Clean event, held in Autumn 2020, proved to be a huge success. Despite the dreich conditions and high water, 137 volunteers cleared more than 100 bags of rubbish in a single weekend from the length of the river between its source at Loch Spey and its mouth at Spey Bay. A wide range of individuals took part as well as groups from the Highland Wildlife Park, RSPB, Cairngorm National Park, Police Scotland, Spey Bailiffs, Gordon Castle Estate, Highland Council and many others. As well as groups on the riverbanks, we were also joined by canoeists along the river as well as motorboats from Loch Insh Watersports Centre.
Since then, the event has grown from strength to strength and we aim to continue to organise the Single Spey River Clean as a bi-annual (Spring and Autumn event). The ultimate aims of the Single Spey event are to both reduce the amount of rubbish in the Spey system as well as raising awareness of the problem to help prevent its ingress.
In future years, we wish to expand the Single Spey River Clean to include the Spey’s major tributaries and to replicate its successful formula on neighbouring river systems.

The last Single Spey River Clean was held over the weekend of 30th September - 2nd October. c80 volunteers cleared nearly 1,000kg of rubbish from locations between Kingussie and Spey Bay. The next Single Spey River Clean will be in Spring 2023 and locations will be shared via our interactive map.