Important: Litter can be contaminated, so we have put together some information to help you handle it safely. Please click on this link to have a read through our Health and Safety Guidance before you go out litter-picking.
Important: Litter can be contaminated, so we have put together some information to help you handle it safely. Please click on this link to have a read through our Health and Safety Guidance before you go out litter-picking.
As our third quarter individual litter pick we decided to target local litter “hot spots†that get bad when the kids are off of school. This meant for most of our restaurants their local parks or open spaces where people are likely to take their “take away†and sit and eat it and then leave their rubbish on the ground. Bournemouth - Lower Gardens For Bournemouth we chose the Lower Gardens which is a short walk from the restaurant. It is massively popular with tourists and locals alike and on a hot day you are lucky to find a space to sit! The park is in three parts and goes right down to the sea front. The part we are targeting is the Lower Gardens which is the busiest. This section of the gardens is quite short and runs from the band stand to the pier. Boscombe - Kings Park For Boscombe we chose Kings Park which is about a 5 minute walk from the restaurant. This is another busy park popular with families during the holidays.
The park is made up of a few parts and we are targeting the part nearest the main road. Eastleigh - Memorial Park For Eastleigh we chose the Memorial Park which is a 5 minute stroll from the restaurant. The park isn’t very big, compared to a lot of the others but due to its close proximity to the town centre is extremely popular all year round. Basingstoke, Market Place - War Memorial Park For Market Place we chose War Memorial Park which is about 5 minutes walk away from the restaurant. It is very popular with families as well as office workers from the city centre having their lunch breaks. Winchester - Cathedral Walk For Winchester we chose the popular grassy area around Winchester Cathedral. Winchester is a huge magnet from tourists from around the world, often there are up to 20 coach loads of tourists in the city in one day. The area is popular with tourists, locals as well as office workers enjoying their lunch breaks. The area is a short stroll from the restaurant. Basingstoke, Brighton Hill - Winchester Road dual carriageway There is no park near to the restaurant at Brighton Hill so the place with the biggest problem is the road leading to and away from the restaurant. This is where we will have the most impact. Swaythling, Southampton - Riverside Park For Swaythling we chose Riverside Park which is a large park about 10 minutes’ walk from the restaurant which follows the river Itchen. It is popular with dog walkers, families as well as school kids and teenagers as it has a lot of facilities for them. Basingstoke, Leisure Park - Stratton Park For Leisure Park we chose Stratton Park which is a 10 minute walk from the restaurant. It is popular all year round but in the summer can be found filled with kids and teenagers playing. Picket Post - Main Road to Burley At Picket Post we chose to do the road leading to the village of Burley(our nearest village) and the 2 main forest car parks that lead off of it. The restaurants has a very small car park so people tend to buy their food in the drive thru and then drive to one of these 2 car parks to eat. Unfortunately they then drop their rubbish out of the car and this can have far reaching consequences. Firstly to the wild life in the forest especially the New Forest ponies, donkeys and cows that are in the forest all year around. The litter can also be blown over the New Forest National Park causing an eye sore for visitors. We all took part in each individual litter pick. I participated in 3 - 2 in Basingstoke and one in Swaythling. The first one in Basingstoke was in Stratton Park and whilst initially it looked like there was very little rubbish, on closer inspection in bushes there was loads of historic rubbish. Our team were fearless, crawling into the bushes to pull out bottles, cans, sweet wrappers and even a shopping trolley and a large piece of perspex. Our second pick was in War Memorial Park in Basingstoke town centre just behind the council offices & close to Festival Place. We spread far and wide covering as much of the park as possible; some of us doing the main park, others the bushes around the perimeter and a group of us targeted the skate park which was a particular eye sore. I then went to Swaythling and we went to Riverside Park to complete our litter pick. We covered the main part of the park picking up rubbish left by groups of school kids from the nearby school who had broken up for the summer that day and had clearly "partied" on the park! We then hit the skate park picking up all of the small bits of rubbish around the shelter making a huge difference to the appearance..
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These groups are near to you in case you want to contact them for advice, to offer them support or, for example, to share equipment with them.
Here at CleanupUK, we want to help you to take LitterAction! Wherever you live in the UK, forming your own community litter-picking group will help to keep your community safer, more friendly and free of litter. It’s lots of fun too. Why not muck in and join us?
