Bearpark Litterpickers

Billingham and surrounding villages

Who are we? We are an environmental group undertaking planting in our village, litter picks, promoting reduction in Co2 and smart driving, and working with the local community to make our village a litter free area. We deliver over 1700 newsletters around our village promoting our message and work with Thringstone Primary School and the local brownie group various events, including a scarecrow festival in June 2011 which brought together all sectors of the community . We held another scarecrow event, in conjunction with Thringstone Methodists, on Saturday 6th July 2013. Our chairman litter picks daily, and is helped by others who litter pick regularly. We try, where possible, to recycle items which can be recycled. We petitioned for extra recycling bins in our village and now have two tin and plastic bottle recycling points and a glass recycling point, and are currently asking for the council to consider ways of recycling acceptable items put in roadside litter bins. Between February 2013 and the end of February 2014, we removed 1,958 bags of litter from the village and woodlands, which we feel is a staggering amount. We have also worked with other groups on environmental issues in the village, and were part of the steering group that saw Thringstone Youth Club win the Children and Young People\\\\\\\'s Green Footprints Award in 2011 for their mural project. We have taken over several flowerbeds and previously untidy and unused areas in the village for planting and offer historical and environmental walks around the village. Please see our website which is www.friends-of-thringstone.org.uk for further details on our group, plus details on our constitution, health and safety policy, equal opportunities policy, parental consent statements and volunteer expenses statement. You can also see on that site details of all our publications. What have we done? In 2009 we won the NW Leicestershire Green Footprints Awards, were awarded an outstanding achievement certificate by East Midlands In Bloom in 2009, and won a gold and silver in the village achievement awards run by the Rural Community Council. In 2010 and were finalists in the Community and Partnerships category of the NWLDC\\\\\\\'s Green Footprints Awards and again in 2013. In 2011 we won The Queen\\\\\\\'s Award for Voluntary Service, something of which we are very proud, especially since 2011 was the European Year of Volunteering,. In 2015 we won the Big Tidy Award at the Keep Britain Tidy Jubilee Awards 2015. In 2021 we won the Leicestershire Live Environmental Heroes Award and also won the Community Organisation Award 2021 with Leicestershire Community Champions. We have a facebook page, and we are also on twitter - address is @Thringstone2. In 2019, our chairman was awarded a British Empire Medal for service to Thringstone and in September 2019, her dog, who accompanied her on all her litter picks, was awarded a commendation from the PDSA.

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!

Buckhurst Hill \"branch\" of the Fabulous Litter Pickers who cover East London! (Wanstead / W\'stow / Leytonstone). Litter picking in Buckhurst Hill (mostly Epping Forest near Palmerston Road to Loughton). We also join the other FAB team in Wanstead occasionally to cover huge areas :)

We will focus on street litter and beach litter to protect all of nature

We clean beaches for the protection of wildlife and have successfully lobbied West Norfolk council for a ban on the mass release of balloons and sky lanterns. We clean beaches around the coast of West Norfolk.

Winchester Litter Pickers were founded in 1995 when three people decided to do more about the litter problem in and around the City. Currently (December 2021) we have over 40 active volunteers and many more supporters. We think it is especially important to give visitors to Winchester a good impression of the City. During the summer months we tidy the Outer Close of the Cathedral daily in the late afternoon and on Monday mornings throughout the year we clear the approaches to the railways station. Twice a month on Wednesday mornings we clear suburban areas in turn, concentrating on the streets and open spaces near the local shops and in particularly bad black spots. We are very much into recycling, recovering the cans, glass and plastic bottles we collect wherever practicable. We are also keen to limit the damaging effects of plastic litter. We are a very sociable group and normally meet up for hot drinks and chats after our litter picks. We also have a very popular annual party. Anyone who would like to join us is invited to call Eddie Woodnutt on 01962 863047 or Jan Wood on 01962 853712 or email us on tidywinchester@gmail.com. You are very welcome to join any of our litter picks as a non-member, but please let us know in advance, so that we can bring along a spare litter grabber if necessary.

Community-led Environmental Action for Regeneration is a voluntary group established in 2007. As residents of a neglected urban regeneration area, we aim to improve the local environment and to help build pride in our local community. CLEAR works to improve the appearance and character of the Buckhaven & Denbeath area through a range of actions which include: • Litter clearing + recycling: improving greenspaces around town, organising both special and ongoing cleanups + recycling collected waste. • Planting: making public open space more attractive by planting flower bulbs, shrubs and trees in parks, shoreline, roadside verges, coastal path and other locations. Smallscale landscaping - installing railings, painting, wall murals, and similar especially focused on neglected or rundown spots • Advocacy, lobbying: Influence policies and practices of key actors such as political representatives, Fife Council, other agencies to combat misuse of public space, encourage investment and improvements in services, tackling eyesores. • Others: CLEAR works with others especially Kinetic/YMCA youth project, Community Wardens, other Fife Council departments. We also started some local public talks to help build community awareness

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.

CUDS was formed primarily to litter pick around our town and its environs. We do so about 4 times a month for 2 hours each time and then have a cup of tea and the all-important biscuits. We also strip useless bits of turf off areas, dig over, plant bulbs and sow wildflower seeds which we maintain on 2 roundabouts and various other places. At present we have about 28 members. We are not a charity - we are funded by grants for which I apply and have back-up from Dervizes Town Council's Park and Open Spaces team when we can't shift all the stuff we have collected ourselves. When we started over 3 years ago, we were viewed with some suspicion - as in 'Are you all doing Community Payback?' and so forth - interesting to think that a great group of oldies would be doing that! Now, in our bright blue hivis vests emblazed with CUDS on the back, nearly everybody knows who we are - and if they don't, they must have been asleep. We work with local groups - Beavers, the Canoe Club, The Lions at their Fair and recently with The Fulltone Orchestra at their free event in the Market Place. We are also planning our reward - apart from cake, which we have before our summer and Christmas breaks. This time we are going on a day out to visit various gardens in Somerset - it's great to be sociable and many have made firm friends within our group.