Welsh Harp clean-up

South Street is a rural area of east Kent close to the village of Boughton. The purpose of the group is to encourage regular walkers from the area to help keep roads and footpaths clear and tidy.

The Isle of Wight is one of the prettiest parts of the country - but some areas are scarred by litter. We hope to meet up for occasional litter picks of footpaths and beaches in the western half of our lovely island. Many hands make light work, so please join us and make a difference.

Mum, teenage son & daughter, daughters boyfriend, Grandad and Olive the dog - fed up of running, cycling, walking, fishing and seeing lazy people’s rubbish thrown in the hedges and verges of our lovely countryside - trying to make a difference, teach good standards and promote looking after our world.

We are not really a group! We are a loose alliance! We started as dog walkers and photographers back in the 70s. I would be walking with our hound and stop to take a picture only to find that foreground rubbish had to be removed. This led to always taking bags for rubbish whenever I went out. For larger items (fly-tips etc) I would move them to a suitable roadside location and call the council who were (and are) very obliging. My “comrades” would do the same. This has been going on ever since (our last dog departed some years ago but the walking and photography continue).

My current (well actually for many years) “bete noire” is bagged dog crap. Twas quite funny, some years ago we had a serial crap flinger - it was everywhere: undergrowth, behind walls, brambles, trees etc. So, one weekend we decided to have a blitz on the stuff. We found about 250 bags in the undergrowth along Leafy Lane, over 100 in one location behind a dry stone wall and so on - a total of around 700 bags altogether. I was walking down my road with a bin bag of bagged dog crap over each shoulder when a neighbour stopped me and asked what I had in the bags! Since that time he and his wife have been inveterate litter pickers. The bagged dog crap problem continues. I have picked up about 30 in various locations over the past couple of weeks (this statement will be approximately true whenever you are reading this!). I used to think that this was just one halfwit on the loose, but it appears that this extraordinary behaviour is common practice. I believe (and I have written to Wilts CC about this) that the socially-acceptable practice of bagging dog crap, binning it and dumping it into landfill is an aberration. We have programmes on TV where ologists of various kinds look at ancient middens to find out how people lived. What will future ologists think of our society?

“Look - they used to wrap up their dog crap and bury it - how weird!”

Talking of weird, an odd incident occurred during my 23 Jan 2012 pick-up. I had a good bin-bag full of rubbish which I was attempting to stuff into the waste bin at Northleaze Mobile Home Park when one of a posse of locals shouted over “Oi - what do you think you’re doing?”. A small exchange ensued during which I explained that this was at least a weekly occurrence and I was tidying-up THEIR environment. But they were having none of it - “You can’t do that”, one said. I should say that this lady did offer to put the rubbish in her own bin but by this time the bin-bag was ripped and taking it out again would have seen the rubbish spilled on the ground. Anyway, their objection seemed to be one of possession - it was their bin! This would be fair enough if the bin was ever used but every time I deposit rubbish in that bin, it is empty (as it was on this occasion). It seems that they want theoretical of the bin without ever using it! Anyway my bin-bag was stuffed into the bin; the bin was emptied by the council the next morning and I stuffed a further bag of rubbish into it later that day. It is odd that no account is taken of rubbish lying in the street but clearance of that same rubbish invokes local disapproval!

Another anecdote - for many years, on Sunday mornings when out walking the dog, I would find an empty bottle of South African white wine (always South African) and an empty (70cl) bottle of vodka tightly knotted into a Tescos plastic bag in the lay-by in White Ennox Lane. What a wild time they must have had and what an interesting drive home.

The bizarre things you find when out collecting rubbish! Today, 25 Nov 2012, it was the “Bath & Wells Diocesan News”, No 264, December 1980 (see pic)! This was by the bus stop at the top of Box Hill. I can imagine the Bishop of Bath & Wells waiting for the bus in his vestments with his mitre and crosier (or is that Catholic bishops?) and unfortunately dropping his News on boarding the bus. One of the News items was the 1980 General Synod at which a major issue would be the ordination of women! Now, thirty-two years on, the Synod has been voting on women bishops. What a slow-moving organisation the C of E is!

By the way, the 20,000 or so bags picked up is an estimate, but probably a conservative one. My weekly pick-up is about 8 bags - 8x52x32(years) is about 13,000. I am, no doubt, doing a great disservice to the rest of the Mob in estimating their input as only 7,000 bags - watch out for the update.

The following table started in 2012, which I will try to update regularly, gives an idea of the scale of the ‘problem’.

1 Jan 2012: B3109, Skynet Drive, field edge 4+bags+mattress - called Wilts CC
2 Jan 2012: Leafy Lane, woods and playing fields, 5 bags
3 Jan 2012: Boxfields Road, Box Hill Common 3 bags+ fly tip - called Wilts CC
4 Jan 2012: Quarry Hill, 3 bags + bagged dog crap (BDC)
5 Jan 2012: B3109, A4 to Hare & Hounds 5 bags+ BDC (7 bags)
6 Jan 2012: Leafy Lane & A4 towards Corsham, 5 bags
7 Jan 2012: B3109, Skynet Drive, Park Lane, 4 bags+ BDC
8 Jan 2012: A4 towards Box, 2 bags
9 Jan 2012: B3109 & A4 towards Corsham, 4 bags
12 Jan 2012: Boxfields Road 1 bag+ small fly tip - called Wilts CC
16 Jan 2012: B3109 & A4 towards Corsham, 4 bags
17 Jan 2012: B3109, Skynet Drive, The Carriage Drive, Pound Mead, 7 bags
23 Jan 2012: B3109 & A4 towards Corsham, 3 bags + BDC
24 Jan 2012: B3109 & A4 towards Corsham, 2 bags
28 Jan 2012: Leafy Lane & B3109 from small Fiveways towards Corsham, 1 bag
7 Feb 2012: B3109 and A4 towards Corsham, 1 bag
8 Feb 2012: Leafy Lane and woodland, 2 bags
12 Feb 2012: A4 towards Box, 4 bags
13 Feb 2012: Rudloe Firs and A4 towards Corsham 10 bags (and still stuff remaining)
13 Feb 2012: (later) B3109, 2 bags
21 Feb 2012: B3109, 1 bag
23 Feb 2012: B3109, Leafy Lane, Leafy Lane Playing Fields, 14 bags

Okay, I guess you get the picture so with one month being very much like another I will discontinue the diary. This is a week-on-week, year-on-year occupation. The last pick-up listed above is instructive though - let me elaborate .. Leafy Lane Playing Fields is a 20 acre site at the south-eastern edge of the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). Its users include football clubs, cricket clubs etc but the principal user is AFC Corsham who do an outstanding job in providing opportunities for young people to play football. AFC Corsham runs 15 teams for youngsters between the ages of around 5 to 15/16. You can imagine therefore the number of youngsters provided for and the scores of parents who ferry their charges back and forth from home to ground and back. All fine BUT it appears that not one of the committee, managers and coaches, parents or others gives a hoot about the enormous piles of litter which are left to accumulate week after week. Rather than an AONB, Leafy Lane Playing Fields resembles a rubbish tip. The Rudloe Mob has an onslaught on the accumulation every couple of months or so. Of the 14 bags collected on 23rd February 2012, 10 came from the playing fields and this was just the tip of the iceberg (see photographs of some of what still remains). The state of the playing fields is, I believe, representative of the state of Britain. A 20-acre site frequented by a community of users who deposit rubbish then cheerfully wander through that same rubbish without giving it a second thought. With regard to litter, whether it is at community or national level, in general “we” couldn’t care less.

In the eighties “that cow” (as described by our local MP at the time, the 6th Earl of Kilmorey or Sir Richard Needham) appointed Richard Branson as the uncrowned king of litter - see this 2005 Guardian article on the subject https://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2005/sep/24/comment - but his campaign along with all others, like the long-established Keep Britain Tidy, failed or is failing. It is not good enough to have high-profile personalities, photo-shoots and high-salaried executives with meaningless job descriptions - take a look at the job description for the £40k plus Head of Communications and Marketing at Keep Britain Tidy:

OUTCOMES TO BE DELIVERED
*Implementation and delivery of the five year communications strategy and annual action plan
*Enhanced reputation of Keep Britain Tidy and its sub-brands
*Senior management feel supported through provision of strategic advice and guidance
*New income streams developed, for example, from behaviour change campaigns
*Stakeholders strategically managed and influenced
*Resources managed effectively within budget to meet to customer demand
*Visible leadership to the relevant communications teams as well as across the wider organisation
*Enhanced profile of the organisation with the relevant audiences
*Public membership scheme developed and successfully implemented, when agreed

Talk about Nero fiddling while Rome burns! We are drowning in a sea of rubbish! You can see the outcome of almost 60 years of Keep Britain Tidy in the small community area covered by this Litteraction webpage. YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO GET OUT THERE AND PICK UP RUBBISH -REGULARLY!

My daughter came up with the idea as it is something we already did as a family. A bit like park run is the idea. Once a week we meet up for a good walk picking up litter and meet new people in our community.

1st Bovingdon Beavers, Cubs and Scouts are going to take an active role in the community and help clean up the surrounding area.

We are currently a group of 4 Mike,jodie,rob and lynda (aka the dream team) We tackle litter/flytipping/graffiti,drug crime in shardend/yorkswood

SEEITPICKITBINIT, has been set up with the aim of bringing local people together to take action in making the kettering area a cleaner community. To donate to our volunteer fundraising efforts, especially for waders and gloves, please contact me via the email link on my group page. This year, after the recent Blue Planet documentary, we'll focus passionately on battling the appalling disaster of Marine and River plastic pollution, throughout the waterways of the Nene Valley. We'll be holding picks every week, raising money for Irchester Animals in Need and recycling as much of the plastic litter as we can, in the River Nene, River Ise and Slade Brook. WE HAVE JUST SECURED SOME CORPORATE FUNDING, SO OUR EQUIPMENT WISH LIST IS LOOKING GOOD. WE HOPE TO BUY A SMALL LITTER PICKING BOAT FOR THE RIVER CAMPAIGN AND SOME SYRINGE PROOF GLOVES. TO SUPPORT SEEITPICKITBINIT'S CAMPAIGN TO TAKE BACK CONTROL OF ENGLANDS RIVERS, ROADS AND GREEN SPACES, YOU CAN HELP US BUY EQUIPMENT OR DONATE TO OUR NOMINATED CAUSE USING THE OFFICIAL PAYPAL LINK FOR OUR GROUP. https://www.paypal.me/seeitpickitbinit Go to paypal.me Go to www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/cleanupmarineplastic Go to www.gofundme.com/marine-plastic-river-rescue-uk SeeItPickItBinIt is a voluntary community litter picking group, based in Kettering Northamptonshire, which has since its creation in 2011, removed and recycled over 10 Tonnes or 10 cars in weight of litter, from our beautiful county. In addition to regular litterpicks on my days off from work each week, every year we hold a 1 Tonne litter pick, which not only aims to clean up the green spaces and river habitats of our community, but also has begun to raise money for charities at the same time. The first two years of sponsorship saw us raise hundreds for Children In Need. This year we have just smashed our litter target with 1270kg and we raised an amazing £500 for a local animal rescue centre in Irthlingborough. The litter situation has never been worse in the history of the United Kingdom. Every day, people dump rubbish from their cars and in the streets. It is difficult to confront, but the heart of the problem can be explained in terms of ownership. The British public has increasingly retreated in to its living rooms, to enjoy its supermarket food, sit on its sofas, in centrally heated houses, fixated on computers, phones or tvs. This life is incredibly comfortable and almost impossible from which to break free. Litter happens because we draw a line at our front doors and our car windows. On the other side of that line is not our problem, so why would we care? Every day we see litter in front of our own doorsteps, on the street and in our parks. Why don't we just pick it up? The reason is because we don't see it as ours, even when it is in our own street, blown from our own bins. Once it crosses that line, we have society's permission to walk by, oblivious and guilt free. One day, I started to see litter. It was everywhere I looked. For years I had complained about it, but I had thought of it as a totally external problem to my life. It's the council, it's someone else's responsibility. One day at work, I did the unthinkable, I got so wound up, I stepped through the invisible forcefield that stops people from departing from the norm. I picked up a plastic bottle and put it in a nearby bin. I almost expected someone to shout at me or to hear sirens, but I didn't. By picking up 1 single bit of litter, I had left that place, better than I had found it, I had already succeeded at making a small, but real difference. After that, I picked up first 10, then 100, then 10,000 pieces of toxic plastic at a time. It felt amazing, my life for the first time, had some meaning beyond feeding my face and being only concerned with maintaining my comfort zone and the comfort zone of those around me. People expressed shock and even warned me that I might get in trouble for breaking the rules. As it turned out, picking up litter has only ever resulted in good things, great conversations, engagement, excitement and encouragement from others, who didn't know such a thing was possible. This year I picked up about 2 Tonnes. During the 2018 litter season, I am challenging myself to remove 5 tonnes. It will definitely not be easy, especially as I've recently lost both parents and my last surviving grandparent. However, litter picking is a way to know that you are part of something bigger, so it helps you through the tough times. Not only does it raise money, it protects and nurtures animals and habitats. Less litter reduces crime and anti-social behaviour, reduces council and government spending. Best of all, it crucially shows others, not just with words, but with concrete powerful actions. I don't think that I'll fix the plastic problem on my own. However any publicity about doing something to tackle a problem that affects us all, is a step in the right direction. Next time you get home and see that plastic bottle or crisp packet in front of your house, just ask yourself, am I a leader or a follower. What happens next will give you the answer. Wonderful news, the McDonalds Drive-In restaurant in Kettering, has generously sponsored 5 bins along Northfield Avenue, in order to mitigate their impact on the community. By working in conjunction with Amanda McDade from Kettering council's street cleansing team, we managed to lobby the food retailer and secured their support in tackling this significant challenge for our community We currently litter pick any area around Kettering and beyond, as and when it looks bad enough to need it. Last years 1 Ton sponsorship raised £500 Nanna's animal shelter in Irthlingborough. This year we hope to raise money for a variety of other litter picking volunteers and groups around the UK. Our focus this year is on river and marine plastics, so we'll be hitting the rivers and lakes, recycling as much as we can, to keep Britain tidy. *********************2017 event target achieved******************** ************************************1270KG**************************** *************************18 picks-100 hours picking**************** **************************Fundraising total £500******************** *************************************************************************** ***********************2018 1 Tonne Litter Pick********************** *********************************92KG************************************ ********************************9 Picks*********************************** *********************Fundraising total £535************************** Future areas of interest will concentrate on the heavy litter problems along the River Ise/Nene and country lanes between Kettering and Thrapston. If you can spare an hour or two, please feel free to email our group to be a part of the next event and help us show that our community is worth caring about. THE A14 FROM WEST BOUND BETWEEN THRAPSTON AND KETTERING IS MISSING, UNDER THE MOUNTAIN OF PLASTIC THAT IS STREWN ALONG ITS VERGES. IF I'M FEELING A BIT CRAZY ONE WEEK, I MIGHT ATTEMPT TO CLEAN IT ALL UP. Every pound that the council doesn't need to spend on picking up litter will be spent on much more deserving projects that effect all of us such as policing, education and health. Several organisations have been extremely helpful in supplying us with bin liners, hi-vis vests and litter grabbers. Many thanks to Amanda McDade, the community litter picking liaison on the council's street cleansing team and to Lindsay Richmond at Helping Hands for the amazing Streetmaster Pro pickers and his much appreciated sponsorship. Please check out the pictures in the gallery, which shows just how much of a difference removing the litter has made at some of the nominated sites. Any help is very much appreciated.

created for the Rainham Essex area, inc. South Hornchurch. We aim to keep litter off the streets adn out of the parks adn play areas. Regular patrols and litter picks combined with sponsored walks.

Albany Park