An Irvine woman has won £500 thanks to her efforts tackling her “litter emergency” throughout the town.

Kathryn Sloan, 62, is a keen litter picker and a member of the Irvine Clean Up Crew.

She was awarded the money from LitterLotto – a regional based lottery people around the world can enter by downloading an app and submitting pictures of themselves binning litter.

She said: “I’ve always been a litter picker. I was brought up to use bins and when I moved to Irvine I joined the Irvine Clean Up Crew and continued it from there. It was instilled in me as a child.”

“It’s just ongoing. You clean up and then the next day it’s just as bad, if not worse. It’s never-ending.

“I quite enjoy it. The more people that do it the better the place is going to look. Especially somewhere as lovely as Irvine with the beach.”

The lottery has joined forces with Keep Scotland Beautiful to encourage Scots to litter pick and help protect Scotland’s environment.

Catherine Gee, deputy chief executive at Keep Scotland Beautiful, said: “I’m delighted to see that Kathryn has been rewarded for doing the right thing through our partnership with LitterLotto.

“This collaboration is all about encouraging people to help tackle the country’s litter emergency and it’s brilliant to see people across the country getting involved.

“I’m looking forward to seeing many more Scottish winners benefitting from helping to keep Scotland beautiful, and with our Spring Clean due to kick off in March it is the ideal time for people to get involved in making a difference.”

The Spring Clean is a Scotland-wide litter picking campaign that will take place between March 17 and April 1 and encourages people to organise and join group litter picks.

Keep Scotland Beautiful has two hubs in North Ayrshire - the Three Towns Clean Up Crew in Ardrossan and West Kilbride Civic Society.

The environmental organisation teamed up with LitterLotto in the end of October 2022 and both are glad to have seen so much success in just three months.

LitterLotto’s campaign project manager, Dawn, said: “It's great to see our Scottish users benefiting from this regional jackpot.

“We hope that our partnership with Keep Scotland Beautiful will encourage others to get involved.

“Our users help keep their communities clean and green and with LitterLotto you can win cash while doing good.”

The LitterLotto app is available to download for free on the App Store and Android Store.