1ST ANNUAL MEETING OF LITTER PICKING GROUPS

Group for volunteer litter pickers in Deptford area

Chailey Litter PIckers have now been active for over a year, having formed in April 2016. We meet as a group monthly, to pick as wide an area as we can in one go. Group members also pick around their own area between group events. Some equipment is always available for group events and I can help people to purchase their own equipment if they would like to do so - gloves, grabbers, bag hoops. We will happily also travel to pick in other areas to help out on group events or to pick in areas where a particular need has been brought to our attention.

An informal group within a small village with the aim to reduce the use of plastics and waste.

Pick up litter. And check on elderly in community all must have a electronic CRB. Chat to people on our way. And be the eyes of the community of chaucer. Help residents get out and do exercise and advice on wellbeing lifestyles. Tackle there issues they are facing and try to make a difference in the community build a effective cohesiveness in all of the community\'s. And much more. Guide youths to be productive and to find there visions and guide them into it.

A growing band of volunteers dedicated to keeping Uckfield and surrounding areas clean, green and litter free. We meet every Sunday at 9am in Waitrose car park, and others perform ad hoc litter picking around our town.

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Spurred on by the grass verges and parks around our lovely town regularly covered with litter, I decided to do litter picking walks in my free time. I have now formed this group, which is also on Facebook, to encourage others to help. I love where I live and aim to make others proud of their locality, so they think twice before chucking their rubbish. Don’t chuck it, bin it.

Hi, I'm Holly and I'm starting out litter picking to help make the area I live in cleaner and more attractive. I walk to work some days and I always marvel at how much rubbish there is, especially after bin collection days and it stays on the streets for weeks, so I wanted to do something about it! Alone but hopefully not for long, I have started picking litter in my area to make it a cleaner and more enjoyable place for everyone. I hope as I get more experience at this I can rally together the troops to start a regular litter picking group to help out and clean up Sopwell! If you'd be interested in joining me, you can send me an email to meet up and arrange a litter picking date. Tel. 07857 944 443 Email. Cleanupsopwell@outlook.com

The Trust has been in existence for over 20 years but only started its annual spring litter pick in 2007. Normally between 10 and 20 people turn out to help. We also have individual members that keep their local area free of litter. We are a registered charity, which aims to improve the environment in the village and promote a high standard of development, whether it be in new buildings or the renovation and alteration of existing property. We aim to secure the protection and improvement of features of public and historic interest and encourage an interest in the history of the area. Issues that we have addressed over recent years include the desirability and standard of new development proposals and changes to the use and appearance of existing buildings, a wide variety of traffic and highway issues, litter and dog fouling. We have arranged for the erection of plaques to provide information about people and buildings of historic interest, organised village litter pick days and had a variety of speakers at our open meetings. We have presented Design Awards for the best new development, following a poll of members. In the past we have published booklets of items about the history and development of the village and produced a leaflet of heritage trails in the village. More recently we have produced a local directory and been assisting the local businesses and community groups in organising the Shotley Bridge Victorian Christmas Weekend, including litter picks to keep the village looking attractive during the event. In 2011 we were awarded 'outstanding' in the RHS 'It's Your Neighbourhood" award scheme for Britain in Bloom. We have purchased 50 flower tubs, 8 barrier baskets and a trough for the conservation area and our volunteers plant and maintain summer & winter bedding. in 2012 we entered Northumbria in Bloom and were awarded Silver. We gained a Silver Gilt in 2013 and again in 2014. We are aiming for Gold in 2015. Each year we give awards for the best business & residential floral displays. Open meetings are held 3 times a year in the Catholic Church Hall for members and guests to raise and discuss issues arising in the village. Please visit our website for further information.

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!