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.
We decided to run an anti-litter poster competition across our area to try and help persuade people not to drop rubbish in the first place, rather than have to pick up rubbish after the event. We wanted to involve members of our local communities so contacted two schools who we had worked with previously: Cantell School in Southampton & The Grange School in Christchurch. We also were invited to run a competition with the Eastleigh BID. We provided both schools with a poster to display in their school, telling the pupils of the competition and the BID advertised the competition on their Facebook page as well as all of the shops in the town. We had loads of entries come in. We then had the tough decision to pick the winners from the large number of entries that came in.
We looked at a number of things when judging: • We wanted something that was eye catching • We wanted something that would easily get the anti-litter message across • We wanted something that would be thought provoking From the entries we finally picked a winner from each of our three entry points. We picked this winner from The Grange School which was designed by year 8 pupils Ellice O’Connor & Georgia McLuckle. This was our winner from the Eastleigh BID competition which was designed by 11 year old Nathaniel Cooper. Lastly our winner from Cantell School in Southampton was designed by Year 9 pupil Hamza Nasir. We had the winning designs made into signs to go in the car parks of our drive-thru restaurants, bin stickers for our internal bins and posters to go up in our non-drive-thru restaurants. The design by Hamza is displayed in our Swaythling restaurant and also our restaurant at Ower. We have worked closely with Cantell School since I contacted them earlier this year regarding some issues we were having after school with local children from three local schools. Harry, the Head of Cantell came to meet me and was very proactive in tackling this. So I was delighted to find a project that we could work on. In your hand outs there is a statement from Harry about us working together but here is a quote from that “Not only has Sarah and her team been involved in many locally organised big “Clean Up†projects, she has also set up the innovative anti-litter competition. I was pleased that our students had the opportunity to take part & even more delighted to hear that one of our students had won!†As well as having Hamza’s design being displayed all over our Swaythling and Ower restaurants we have one of his signs displayed at Swaythling railway station and the school are having bin stickers to use there as well! We are proud to also work closely with local councillor Bob Paignton who really wanted to be here today but was unable due to council commitments. He asked that we read out a statement from him, the whole of which you can read in your hand outs: “it has been a privilege to work alongside Sarah and the team in their efforts to keep community pride at the forefront of their business by their volunteering efforts employing young local people and taking away the negative outlook that portrayed McDonalds into a positive attitudeâ€. The design by Nate is displayed in our Eastleigh restaurant as well as Winchester, Basingstoke Bright Hill, Market Place & Leisure Park. Working with the BID seemed a natural thing to do after I mentioned our project in a conversation that I was having with Teresa Swann, the BID manager at the beginning of the project. We could reach a much wider audience working with them so decided that it would be a great idea. Last week we invited the winner Nate into the Eastleigh restaurant for a grand unveiling by the mayor, Councillor Mo Sollitt. The design by Ellice & Georgia will be displayed in our Christchurch restaurant. We haven’t put it up yet, as the children are still off of school until 6th September. I wanted to wait until I put their winning design up as I wanted it to be a nice surprise when they come along to the official unveiling which we are in the process of arranging with their art teacher Terry Curtis, who I worked with on this project. We have invited local councillor Peter Hall along as well as Charlie Wild from Litter Free Dorset & Christine Hopkins of local community group Someford ARC. The girls design is already displayed in our restaurant at Picket Post and will also be displayed in Bournemouth and Boscombe after the unveiling in Christchurch. .
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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?
