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.

 

Flowers of Stanmore Common

Harrow,ha7 4xw

18 Jun 2011

23:00

Warren Lane car park - 1.30 - 3.00pm .

upcoming Events

No upcoming events

past Events

National Moth night

National Moth Night. We will gather round a UV lamp and see what comes in. No moths are harmed and all are released after identification.

Morning Work party

10.30 am Stanmore Country Park - come along and meet us and help!

Walk and Picnic

Stanmore Common from 10am

Summer Butterfly walk

Meet 11.00am at Dennis Lane Car Park, Stanmore

National Moth Night

Stanmore Country Park 10.00pm meet at Dennis Lane Car Park. John our warden is a moth enthusiast

Stanmore Common Botany Walk

Car park at Warren Lane Stanmore at 1.45. Great fun - may need insect repellant!

Working Party

Gilbert's Orchard Grimsdyke - clearing bramble and scrub from around ancient trees planted by Lucy Gilbert. To confirm refer to www.harrowncf.org/HNCF_evetns.html webpage or call grimsdyke Hotel on...

Pruning old apple trees

January or Febbruary 2012. Stanmore Orthopaedic Hospital. Watch this space for more information.

Fungi of Stanmore CountryPark

Meet at Stanmore Country Park car park off Dennis Lane - 2.00pm - 4.00pm Do not park in Recreation Car Park as other activities use it - like Bowls Club/Bridge Club etc.

Bat Walk

Warren Lane car park - to be confirmed 8.00pm -

Stanmore Common Working Party

Warren Lane car park at 10.00am for another bash at the bush.

Summer Butterflies at 10.30am

Stanmore Country Park - learn about moths and butterflies with one of our knowledgeable wardens. Park in Dennis Lane car park (limited spaces). See calendar on Harrow Conservation Forum's webpage. h...

Working party - Stanmore Common

Meet Warren Lane car park at 10 am and never mind the rain - join like-minded people for a spot of toil!

Work Party

Warren Lane car park - 10.00am - 1.00

Work Party

Warren Lane car park - 10.30 - 3.00pm

Work Party

Stanmore Common - meet in Warren Lane car park 10 - 3.00pm

Working party

Stanmore Common 10am - 1.00 meet in Warren Lane car park

Butterfly Walk

Stanmore Common - 10.00am at Warren Lane car park

Unusual plants - Stanmore Common

Meet up at 2.00pm with our expert warden(s) for an interesting afternoon. May need insect repellent cream!!

HNF Conservation Work Party

Stanmore Common 10.30am as usual

Harrow Conservation Work Party

Meet at Stanmore Common car park - Warren Lane 10.30am

Moth night - Stanmore Country Park

9.00pm -- come along and learn about the many different species from our expert!

Working party

Scrub clearance in Holly Brook Rise on Stanmore Common. Meet car park on Warren Lane, Stanmore at 10.30 am.

Guided walk in Stanmore Country Park

Meet at Dennis Lane (lower end) car park at Stanmore 10.30am

Wild Flower Walk

Wild flower walk on Stanmore Common - meet Warren Lane car park at 10.00 Fascinating with 2 wardens informing us about micro moths and everything else....but a good crop of midge bites!

Guided walk Stanmore Common

Meet 10.00 Stanmore Common Car Park Warren Lane - super fun with knowledgeable guide(s).

Clean up at Brewers Ponds

Meet at Warren Lane Car Park Stanmore Common at 10.30.

Stanmore Common Work Party - Harrow Conservation Trust

Also at 1.30 - work party under aegis of volunteer Warden

Stanmore Country Park work party

The management consists of working to retain the open grassy areas and to try and expand them. In the winter months groups of volunteers from the British Trust of Conservation Volunteers (BTCV) are bo...

Guided walk Stanmore Common with Harrow Conservation

See their website (Harrow Conservation Trust) for details. Meet at car park on Warren Lane.

Working party

Wrong date previously!!!

Brewery Pond clean up

Meet Little Common and walk up to Brewery Pond to pick litter and show solidarity to littering/loitering fishermen

Bentley Old Vicarage open day and fete

Saturday September 20th 2008 Bentley Old Vicarage 11:00 AM onward Open Day (combined with All Saint's Church fete)

litter picking

Meet at Stanmore carpark - Dennis Lane - 8.30am still masses of rubbish near Ponds and cricket ground. harrow Fast Response uplifted my pickings unexpectedly!

Green Gym!! Working parties at Bentley Old Vicarage & Stanmore Common

Sunday September 7th 2008 Bentley Old Vicarage 10:00 AM Working Party in the morning only Sunday September 7th 2008 Stanmore Common 1:30 PM Working Party dead tree cut up. rubbish picked up.

Various - part of Harrow Conservation

Saturday August 30th 2008 Stanmore Country Park 8:30 PM Moth evening evening event Saturday September 20th 2008 Bentley Old Vicarage 11:00 AM onward Open Day (combined with All Saint's Church fete) ...

Working parties in the area - if you like hard work!

Sunday August 24th 2008 Roxbourne Rough 10:00 PM Working Party Sunday September 7th 2008 Bentley Old Vicarage 10:00 AM Working Party in the morning only Sunday September 7th 2008 Stanmore Common 1:3...

Nearby Groups

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.

Brighter Uckfield Campaign (BUC Up)
The Group operates under the aegis of the Town Council. Every Sunday morning, at 9.00, a small band of volunteers (open to anyone to attend) meets at the Civic Centre to conduct a 'swift-pick' in the worst-affected areas (finishing at about 11.00). The Campaign has moved onto taking small patches of public land in the town and overseeing planting out and maintenance. The town's annual beautiful gardens competition is organised by the Group. The Group joins the annual clear-up of the River Uck that flows through the town. Weeding pavements and cutting back undergrowth are also tasks that are taken on. Most of this work is concentrated on the town centre, but a network of 'litter pickers' is being gradually established on the estates around the town. Volunteers are provided with a hi-vi vest, a litter picking stick, gloves and refuse sacks - and we even have wheeled trolleys to take round with you to deal with the large amounts of litter on a Sunday morning. The Campaign has its own (Don't be a) "Mucky Duck" logo.
336
17 years
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Quickfire Closed Group
This group is closed
117
4 years
View
North Rode Litter Patrol
North Rode is a small spread out rural community, where a few passing motorists love to drive through and leave momentos of their night out, mainly empty cans of carling black label, take away cartons and fag packets. We also clean and keep clear road signs if needed. Let’s keep this beautiful village clean and green!
27
5 years
View
Palmers Green Action Team
We are a group of local residents who are keen to make Palmers Green a beautiful and thriving place to be. We have ad hoc litter picks which we organise through our volunteer WhatsApp group. We also have an annual spring clean event in the high street. If you would like to join please send us an email!
0
6 years
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Petersfield Pickers
Petersfield Pickers Community Group has been formed by a number of volunteers on the Petersfield Pulse Facebook Community Page. Members of Petersfield Pulse are all from Petersfield and surrounding areas.
48
7 years
View
Marske Litter Action
Local people working to keep Marske-by-the-sea litter free. We organise regular beach clean ups and litter picking around our area. We have cabinets where you can borrow equipment to do your own litter pick at a time that suits you. Get in touch or join us at our next event if you want to help out! Events are advertised on our Facebook page - just search for Marske Litter Action or email us at marskelitteraction@hotmail.com
1878
17 years
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Stretton Parish Council
Parish Council - improving village life for Stretton residents
0
55 years
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The Rudloe Mob
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!
20750
55 years
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Mexborough Ferryboat Association
Our volunteers litter pick the length of Mexborough canal and the Ferryboat slipway.
200
9 years
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Sopwell Litter Pickers
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
110
7 years
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Start a LitterAction group

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?

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