A SAUCHIE man has been spending his free time cleaning up the town and spreading some much-needed cheer along the way.

Lately, Arron Uytendhal can often be seen, or heard, walking the streets with his litter picker, cart, and speaker.

The aim of the local "litter hater" is to tidy the town and, hopefully, bring about a few smiles too.

Arron told the Advertiser: "So basically, I hate litter anyway – that should be a given for everybody – but I know there's only one street cleaner that we see.

"He's a lovely guy, but he's got a huge area to cover and by the time he comes back the litter's everywhere again.

"Pretty much anywhere you walk in Clackmannanshire now, there's litter.

"I just thought to myself, I may as well try and pick it all up."

With that in mind, he bought a "wee cart" and started taking it on walks, using it to store the litter he's collected.

And he said: "I have got a wee speaker that I take out in the cart, and I play a bit of music when I'm out."

Every so often, he'll come across someone "down on their luck" after losing their job during lockdown, and tries to help by sorting them out with things such as food parcels, if needed.

He said: "I just thought I'm going to do something that'll cheer people up."

But more than that, Arron hopes that when others see someone out and about tidying up the town, it might encourage any litter louts to reconsider their habits.

He said: "One other thing it does is show a person picking up litter – not a council worker.

"Something that I've heard so much is: 'that's not my job, that's the council's job'."

"'They ask me why I'm picking up litter, but that's the wrong question.

"The question to ask is: why are people dropping litter?"

For now, Arron – who is currently on furlough – plans to keep going with his litter walks, and even venture out even further in the coming days and weeks.

He said: "What I'm going to do is, hopefully, get out further afield.

"It's just to really cheer folk up, to make them smile a bit."