Da Voar Redd Up

If you visit Shetland in April you might see bright green rubbish bags piled by the roadside. You might even see a group of people walking along the road or the beach carrying those green bags. These are for what we call in Shetland: Da Voar Redd Up.

For those of you that don’t speak Shetlandic Da Voar means the spring and Redd Up has a number of meanings all related to cleaning, tidying or sorting things out so the best translation of Da Voar Redd Up is the Big Spring Clean and its a big event here in Shetland.

Schools, community groups, businesses and individuals will adopt a section of roadside or local beach then armed with their specially produced green rubbish bags they will volunteer a few hours picking up the litter that has blown onto their patch.

Da Voar Redd Up has been held annually since 1988 and it is organised by the Shetland Amenity Trust. Da Voar Redd Up is considered the UK’s most successful community litter-picking event and it makes a huge difference to have the rubbish that’s been blown around, washed ashore or just dropped on the ground dealt with on a regular basis.

So if you’ve seen piles of bright green rubbish bags by the side of the road you now know that they’re not rubbish that’s been dumped but part of our long running scheme to keep Shetland tidy.