Young activists joined the river clean up all along the Tweed last weekend.

Melrose Scouts, Cubs and Beavers joined the Tweed rubbish pickup on Sunday, October 27 where over 100kg of waste was collected.

The young environmentalists found some interesting trash left by careless litterers: old bits of carpet, car hubcaps and even a rusted shopping trolley.

The River Clean was spearheaded by St Mary's School, Melrose, teacher Tom Rawson who won the Tweed Forum River Champion award earlier this month.

At 20 different locations along the River Tweed, environmentalists came together to clear up a myriad of waste left in the area.

The Borders River Clean also garnered support from the local Extinction Rebellion branch and A Greener Melrose, who spent their Sunday on the banks at Leaderfoot picking up waste which had been dumped in the 'fragile ecosystem'.

Within an hour and a half, XR and A Greener Melrose had filled ten large bin bags with harmful waste.

“It’s great to see people joining together in this effort,” said Donald McPhillimy, chairman of A Greener Melrose.

“Communities around the Borders are showing their concern for the environment and making great efforts to adopt greener lifestyles.

“As well as Greener Melrose, Greener Hawick and Tweedgreen, there’s now groups set up in Bowden, Stow, Yetholm, Eyemouth, Ettrick and Yarrow and others coming on board all the time, helping to reduce carbon and restore our ecosystems’ sustainability."

The aim of the River Clean was to highlight the damage done by plastic pollution in our waterways. The litter picking has now shown that the pollution around the Tweed goes beyond just plastic.

Tom Rawson told us: "Plastic pollution is a real issue, we are the cause of it and it is our problem to solve.

"We have all seen images of beaches in Bali covered in rubbish or albatross chicks in the South Atlantic feeding plastic pieces to their chicks but how often do we look to see the damage done to our own streams and rivers?

"We need to realise that plastic pollution affects us all."