Author Archives: Bella

Wandle Cleanup: August 2019: Wandsworth

1 Reply

For this month’s cleanup we headed to Ravensbury Terrace, where the Wandle forms the boundary between the boroughs of Wandsworth and Merton.

As usual, once everybody had arrived, we did a quick Welcome Talk and Health & Safety briefing. Earlier in the year, we had to cancel the cleanup at this particular site due to bad weather, so luckily the storm earlier in the week did not cause the river levels to rise too high, and we were able to go ahead. On the day the weather was windy but lovely and sunny – perfect for wading!

We had a total of 29 volunteers this month working together wading, pulling rubbish out from the river and litter picking the banks. We were expecting to discover a large accumulation of rubbish, due to the length of time since we’d visited this site, and whilst we found a fair amount, it was much cleaner than we thought!

We didn’t just find litter in the river this month… we also saved a butterfly from drowning and left him to dry out on the banks.

We stopped for lunch around 1 o’clock and had to eat the cake fast as it was melting in the sunshine! We also had time to model some of the interesting items we found.

After lunch we did a second sweep of the river and also ventured downstream a little more. We always manage to find more rubbish, so we went all the way through until 3 o’clock, when we finally decided to call it a day.

Here is the final rubbish pile.

So what did we find? 5 tyres, two bikes, two traffic cones, a carpet, a pillow, a make-up suitcase, a till (unfortunately empty), a pipe, a TV, 1 radiator, three footballs, a pram and as always lots of bottles, cans and plastic bags. 

Massive thanks to everyone who helped set up at the start of the day and pack up the van at the end of the event, Dave for supervising the Event Tent, Wandsworth Council for organising the collection of all the rubbish, Big Yellow Wandsworth for providing free storage space for our equipment, and of course to our funders The National Lottery Community Fund!

Special shout out to Guy and helpers for clearing over 1500 Himalayan Balsam plants so we could litter pick the bank and access the river easily and to David for testing out the depth of the river!

Thank you to all our volunteers for coming: Tom, Rob, Gearoid, Dave, Wally, Ben, Sheila, Tom, Charlene, Jason, Margaret, Charles, Chris, Fay, Deborah, David, Daphne, David, Paul, Derek, Ed, Thomas, William, Phil, Davina, Paul, Fingal and Guy.  

As this was our last clean-up, Jo and I would like to say a massive thank you to Polly and Jess from the Wandle Trust for training us and giving us the opportunity to run these cleanups. We have loved every minute and are sad to be leaving.

To all the volunteers that come out every month come rain or shine, you really are the heart of this charity and without you all we would not be able to run these events and make the difference we do to the river and surrounding environment.

Particularly huge thanks to Dave and Wally for giving us all the guidance and humour we could possibly ask for!

We wish you all the best and look forward to seeing the clean-ups continue to grow in the future. We will definitely be back to volunteer once we are finished on our next adventures!

Lucy and Jo.

Wandle Cleanup: July 2019: Sutton

Leave a reply

For the July Cleanup we headed to Goat Road, Sutton.

We started off the day with the usual Welcome Talk and Health & Safety briefing. As always, everyone was very eager to crack on with wading and litter picking along the banks.

We had 52 volunteers join us this month, another great turn out! From a distance, the river seemed fairly clean, but on closer inspection, we could see lots of rubbish was entangled in the river vegetation and bank sides. Derek had his eye on a Boris bike and motorcycle he had spotted earlier in the month so a few of the volunteers focused on retrieving these.

The riverbanks also needed a thorough litter picking and we came across around 100 cans that had been carelessly discarded.

When it was time for a lunch break, we were all hurrying to get a piece of Jo’s mums’ delicious coffee and walnut cake (thank you Valerie!).

In the afternoon we moved upstream of the road bridge to clear the section of river downstream of the weir.

There was still so much rubbish to find, so we went all the way through until 3 o’clock when we finally decided to call it a day.

Here is the final rubbish pile – a haul so big the council had to do two trips to take it away!

So what did we find? 10 tyres, a motorbike, a Boris bike, a bed, one mattress, a traffic cone, a carpet, two barriers, various toys, a bike, two coconuts, a toilet, and as always lots of bottles, cans and plastic bags. 

See you all next month!

Lucy and Jo

Huge thanks to everyone who helped pack up the van at the end of the event, Dave for supervising the Event Tent, and Sutton Council for organising collection of all the rubbish the same day, Big Yellow Wandsworth for providing free storage space for our equipment, and to our funders, the National Lottery Community Fund.

Thank you to all our volunteers for coming: Val, Martin, Rosie, Tomm, Steve, Pauline, Dizzy, Dave, Kate, Jane, Dave, Guy, Steve, Takako, Thomas, Roderick, Fiona, Tony, Bertie, Jason, Paul, Syed, Sumayya, James, Lawson, Mike, Margo, Chris, Charles, Derek, Aaron, Nick, Claire, Joseph, Benjamin, Per, Phil, Andy, Joseph, Marion, Neil, Thea, Sarah, John, Wally, Rob, Dylan and Elisabeth.

Wandle Cleanup: June 2019: Merton

Leave a reply

Our June river cleanup took place at North Road, Merton. We had a great turnout this month with 68 keen volunteers.

Following the welcome talk and health and safety briefing, we headed downstream to access the river and start removing the rubbish. It was amazing to discover how much litter was both floating and embedded in the riverbed and banks.

Items such as plastic bottles and food wrappers quickly filled the trugs, and volunteers on the banks helped to bag it up and wheel it to the rubbish pile.

The wading team in action.
Yorkshire puddings anyone?

We also found quite a few larger, heavier items such as duvets, bicycles and a three-piece sofa set! We hauled these onto the banks as a team, and the cub scouts also did a great job of bagging up the rubbish and carrying it to the rubbish pile.

Warning! Duvets are heavy when wet!

Several trees had fallen across the river, creating great habitat for insects, birds and fish, and also trapping rubbish for us to retrieve. The volunteers carefully leafed through the branches, searching for “hidden treasures”.

A litter trap – and also an important refuse for small fish and birds.

Around 1pm we took a break to refuel. A huge thanks to Wally for managing the refreshments. Whilst enjoying some cake we sang Happy Birthday to Derek, one of our long serving and dedicated cleanup team.

After lunch we went back in the river where we’d left off and continued upstream pulling more rubbish. In total we removed a total of 6 tonnes of rubbish from along just 250m of river!

Trug, after trug, after trug of rubbish!

What did we find?
Two bicycles, a sofa and two armchairs, car tyres, a TV, duvets, an estate agent signpost, various parts of motor vehicles, children’s toys, kitchen pots and pans, religious statues, and the usual food wrappers and drinks bottles and cans.

We had a massive rubbish pile by the end of the session!

Great work everyone. Looking forward to seeing you all at our July cleanup!

Jo & Lucy

Huge thanks to everyone who helped unpack and pack up the van during the event, Wally for supervising the Event Tent, Merton Council for organising collection of all the rubbish the next day, Big Yellow Wandsworth for providing free storage space for our equipment, and to our funders, the National Lottery Community Fund.

Thank you to all our volunteers for coming: Tim, Simon, Carter, Shaun, Claire, Alfie, Sheila, Phil, Dave, Chris, John, Carolyn, Nick, Tom, Jenny, Becky, Ed, Matthew, Tony, Charles, Tim, William, Steve, Emma, Berte, Joanna, Thomas, Anita, Wally, Neil, Guy, David, Peter, Martin, Per, Andy, Nick, Farah, Davina, Aria, Murray, Elizabeth, Claire, Joseph, Alan, Jason, Denis, Ivan, Robert, Wilfred, Sebastian, Arna, Jane, Alan, Rob, Bev, Robert, Stewart, Jill, Leo, Aaron, Brian, Thea, Phil, Liz, Chris, Simon, Suzanne

Wandle Cleanup: May 2019: Merton

Leave a reply

For our May cleanup we headed to Plough Lane in Merton.

We started off the day with the usual Welcome Talk and Health & Safety briefing. For the first time this year we were lucky to have lovely sunny weather, so everyone was very eager to crack on with wading and litter picking around the banks.

We had another amazing turnout this month, with 49 volunteers getting stuck in cleaning the river. Initially the site seemed fairly clean, but once we got in the river it was shocking to see how much was embedded into the river bed.

The riverbanks were very clean, so the morning mainly consisted of removing rubbish from the river itself. This site was particularly bad for wet wipes and cloth trapped in the riverbed and surrounding vegetation. We had to work as a team to get the rubbish up from the river (we channelled our inner superman/ninja turtle).

We stopped for lunch around 1 o’clock and were all hurrying to get a piece of the lovely lemon drizzle cake made by Jackie – huge thank you for this, it was delicious!

After lunch we did a second sweep of the river and found even more cloth tangled in the riverbed. There was still so much rubbish to find, so we went all the way through until 3 o’clock when we finally decided to call it a day.

Here is the final rubbish pile.

So what did we find? 12 tyres, a trolley, a scooter, a bed frame, some socks, a traffic cone, a skateboard, various parts of a car, two large bones, a carpet, two barriers, superman, ninja turtle, various toys, a bike, huge amounts of wet wipes and other cloth, and as always lots of bottles, cans and plastic bags. 

Finally, we would like to say a massive thank you to the Robins & Day Vauxhall show room, for letting us use their toilet and also offering teas and coffees!

Lucy and Jo

Huge thanks to everyone who helped pack up the van at the end of the event, Dave for supervising the Event Tent, Big Yellow Wandsworth for providing free storage space for our equipment,Merton Council for organising collection of all the rubbish and of course to our funders, The National Lottery Community Fund!

Thank you to all our volunteers for coming: Mike, Suzanne, Charles, Sheila, Bev, Sally, Derek, Aaron, Claire, David, Caroline, Ian, Joe, Neil, Simon, Dave, Luke, Lynda, Steve, Joanne, Elizabeth, Chris, William, Guy, Paul, Alfie, Beau, Steve, David, Per, Nick, Andy, Margaret, Rob, Suzanne, Steve, Martin, Indi, Linda, Davina, Aria, Phil, Kate, Estelle, Will and Jamie.

Wandle Cleanup: April 2019: Sutton

Leave a reply

For our April cleanup we headed to Culvers Avenue, Sutton as part of the nationwide Great British Spring Clean taking place this month.

As usual we started off the day with a Welcome Talk and Health & Safety briefing. We then cracked on with wading and litter picking around the banks.

We had an amazing turnout this month with 72 volunteers who were all full of enthusiasm and eagerness to clean the river!

Before lunch we removed litter along the long stretch of the river running through the park, all the way down to Culvers Avenue and the areas around the river. We found lots of personal items, including a sock, some keys, a phone and a coat. Another small group of volunteers spent the morning clearing the river near Hackbridge Road. 

We stopped for lunch around 1pm and were lucky to have some home-baked goods waiting for us, made by two of the students who volunteering with us – massive thanks to both of you, the cakes were delicious!

After lunch we went down the right-hand side of the river and removed even more litter from the river and banks, finding components of a basketball net.

There was so much rubbish to find we went all the way through until 3 o’clock when we finally decided to call it a day.

Here is the final rubbish pile.

So what did we find? 2 tyres, a trolley, a pushchair, a toilet, 2 footballs, a coat, some socks, a pogo stick, a scooter, a cone, a basketball net and fixture, some keys, a phone, a type writer, lots of bottles, cans and plastic bags. 

Lucy and Jo

Huge thanks to everyone who helped pack up the van at the end of the event, Wally for supervising the Event Tent, Sutton Council for organising collection of all the rubbish the next day, Big Yellow Wandsworth for providing free storage space for our equipment and to The National Lottery Community Fund.

Thank you to all our volunteers for coming: Martin, Sheila, Paul, Elizabeth, Brenda, John, Jan, Martin, Mickey, Amanda, Maria, Rowna, Natalie, Guy, Fran, Leila, Richard, Elizabeth, Steve, Amanda, Nicholas, Jenny, Andrea, Marion, Alistair, Nick, Christopher, Jessica, Mick, Tom, Clare, Joseph, Ed, Matthew, Nick, Wayne, Tony, Phil, Clare, Graham, Rob, Amberel, Sian, Rob, Charles, Victor, Vivienne, William, Elisabete, Isla, Simon, Autem, Kate, Bev, Rob, Margaret, James, Elaine, Gillian, Geoff, Dave , Wally, and Aaron.

Wandle Cleanup: March 2019: Wandsworth

Leave a reply

Our March river cleanup took place in King George’s Park, Wandsworth. We visited this site back in December and the area still appeared to be reasonably clean, which is a positive sign of the impact of our work.

After a night of heavy rain and continued strong winds the river was not suitable for wading – fast current and well above waist height for most of us. However, we had 46 happy volunteers turn up for litter picking along the banks. In doing this valuable work, they are preventing lots of pieces of litter entering the waterway.

We started the day with the usual welcome talk and health and safety briefing. It was great to see a few newbies eager to get involved as well as all our regulars keen as ever.

The majority of the rubbish was small pieces of litter such as food wrappers and packaging. The beady eyes of our volunteers helped them pick up even the smallest pieces of rubbish, however the wind proved a challenge for keeping it in the bags. We also removed plastic bags and cloths tangled amongst brambles and tree roots.

Around 12:30pm we took a break for lunch and hot drinks – huge thanks to Rosie for managing the refreshments. As the river condition had not improved for wading and most of the litter had been cleared during the morning, we decided to stop for the day and let everyone enjoy their Sunday afternoon.

Great work everyone – look how much we removed!

Looking forward to seeing everyone at the April cleanup. Fingers crossed for fine weather and wading!

Jo

Huge thanks to everyone who helped unpack and pack up the van during the event, those who supervised the Event Tent, Wandsworth Council for organising collection of all the rubbish the next day, Big Yellow Wandsworth for providing free storage space for our equipment and to our funders, the National Lottery Community Fund.

Thank you to all our volunteers for coming: Martin, Guy, Clare, Joseph, Jess, Nyssa, Billy, Jessica, John, Davina, Mia, Zhen, Errol, Dave, Derek, Aaron, Stefan, Nally, Rosie, Robert, Nick, Andy, Simon, William, Margaret, Kyle, David, Libby, Will, Charles, Amanda, Alexis, Steve, Jason, Nick, Rob, Caroline, Phil, Paul, Phil, Per, Chris, James, Natalie, Jane, Jamie.

Wandle Cleanup: February 2019: Merton

Leave a reply

Our February river cleanup took place in Wandle Park, Merton. This month’s cleanup was a little different from usual; combining litter picking, fly-tipping removal and tackling floating pennywort.

Floating pennywort is an invasive non-native plant species. This means the species was introduced to the area and is causing harm to the naturally occurring life in the river. Pennywort can be easily seen floating on the surface of the river like little kidney-shaped lily pads. It causes a range of problems including changing the availability of oxygen in the water, threatening fish and invertebrates, choking drainage systems and crowding out native water plants. With this in mind, we thought it would be best to get in early and remove the pennywort before spring arrives.

Luckily we had 52 lovely volunteers turn up to lend a hand!

The day began with the welcome talk and health and safety briefing before splitting the group into litter pickers and pennywort removers.

There was some excellent team work going on in the river as pennywort was pulled and removed, then wheeled away.

Most of the litter was likely a result of park users and included bottles, drinks cans, food packaging and footballs.

Around 12:30pm we took a break for lunch. Shout out to the Richmond University Great British Bake Off Group and Per’s wife for all the delicious baked goods; and Rosie and Wally for manning the refreshment tent ensuring everyone warmed up with hot drinks.

After lunch, our volunteers headed back into the river. Many of the litter pickers had sought out a few hotspots of litter which they cleared up. Top finds were a plastic palm tree and several plastic Christmas trees.

Dave had set up a catch net at the start of the day to prevent any drifting pennywort fragments from floating downstream. As a final job before packing up, this was emptied and removed.

All our volunteers should be extremely proud of their effort and work as the river looked much clearer and the flow had increased. On top of removing the pennywort, look at how much litter was also collected – great work!

Looking forward to seeing everyone at the March cleanup!

Jo

Huge thanks to everyone who helped unpack and pack up the van during the event, those who baked and those who supervised the Event Tent, Merton Council for organising collection of all the rubbish the next day, Big Yellow Wandsworth for providing free storage space for our equipment and to our funders, Merton Council and the National Lottery Communtiy Fund.

Thank you to all our volunteers for coming: Lynda, Champior, Joanna, Davinay, Tom, Grant, Billy, Jihyun, Phil, Derek, Per, Charles, Chris, James, Steve, Becky, Gareth, Martin, David, Andy, Paul, Nicholas, Robert, Tony, Jess, Chris, James, Simon, William, Nyssa, Pontus, Lauren, Jacob, Nicholas, Jenny, Sue, Anita, Philomenia, Sanner, Hazjq, Hassan, Jane, Rosie, Margaret, Kyle, Wally, Dave, Milan, Aaron, Gideon, Erica and Ed.

Wandle Cleanup: January 2019: Sutton

Leave a reply

Happy New Year to you all.

For the first cleanup of 2019 we visited Poulter Park in Sutton – and what a great start to the year it was.

We began the day with our Welcome Talk and Health & Safety briefing, important for all, especially our newcomers; 38 volunteers in total.

The results of recent fly tipping by Goat Bridge had been noticed by a few volunteers on arrival, so we decided to send a some of our well-practised volunteers to clear this site. Meanwhile, the rest of us headed down to the river with waders, litter pickers and bin bags to begin clearing the water and banks. We worked upstream to the weir.

Many of our long-standing volunteers remembered clearing several hundred car tyres from this stretch of river a few years ago so there was no surprise at all as more started rolling out of the water. Luckily not anywhere near as many.

We found several chairs, too – probably a little too soggy to sit on now!

There was also one unknown but heavy object on the river bed that proved a little too much for volunteers, try as they might!

It took some convincing to get everyone out of the water for lunch, but eventually we made it back up to the gazebo for tea, coffee and cake.

After lunch we decided to do a second sweep of the river as either side of our entry point and the weir the river can get a little deep. It was surprising how much more we could pull out.

Today’s finds also included lots of toys which have been added to our collection for the Museum of London.

Finishing up around 2:30pm we stood back to admire our haul.

So what did we find? 16 car tyres, 5 chairs, 1 bike, a scary looking doll, a suitcase, car headlights

Looking forward to seeing everyone at the February cleanup!

Jo

Huge thanks to everyone who helped unpack and pack up the van during the event, those who supervised the Event Tent, Sutton Council for organising collection of all the rubbish the next day ,Big Yellow Wandsworth for providing free storage space for our equipment and to our funders, the Big Lottery.

Thank you to all our volunteers for coming: Dave, Phil, Luke, Raphael, Lynda, Sheila, Phil, Gideon, Steve, Martin, Stewart, Guy, Joe, An, Dean, Jamie, Will, Andy, Per, Chris, Nicholas, Rob, Connor, Matt, Rosie, Rob, Charles, William, Alex, Thidare, Derek, Aaron

Wandle cleanup: November 2018: Wandsworth

Leave a reply

Our November cleanup was scheduled to be held at Ravensbury Terrace in Wandsworth and the sun was shining. However, the heavy rain the previous day and throughout the night resulted in us unfortunately having to cancel the event!

Taking one look at the river we could see the water level had risen dramatically. The small island on the bend was well below the surface and the lower branches of the weeping willow were submerged. A repeat of December 2017 showing just how easily rain affects this site in Wandsworth: 

We did remove a few bin bags of rubbish from around the cars. Mostly drinks cans, bottles and food wrappers – every bit makes a difference!

Despite all this we want to say a huge THANK YOU to Dave for getting to the site early and for staying to greet any unknowing volunteers, and to all those who helped litter pick the car park. Apologies again to anyone who didn’t get the email, it was great to see you and chat over hot drinks and cakes. If this was your first time attending a cleanup, rest assured very few events are cancelled and we look forward to showing you the ropes in December.

See you next time for our festive cleanup!

Please bring some cash to purchase your Wandle cleanup Christmas cards!

Wandle cleanup: July 2018: Sutton

Leave a reply

For our July cleanup, we headed to Goat Road in Mitcham.

This was the first event that myself and Hannah ran since taking over from Polly and we would like to thank everyone for being so welcoming and helpful. We would especially like to thank Polly for showing us the ropes!

We started off the day with the usual Welcome Talk and Health & Safety briefing. It was very hot, but everyone was still eager to get wading and litter picking! We had a great turnout with about 30 volunteers working hard in and around the river.  A few members of the group also spotted some Himalayan balsam and worked as a team to remove it before it could spread seeds any further.

Throughout the day we removed lots of plastic litter and we also found a few interesting things, including a passport, a hammer, a king size mattress, a fridge, a (fake) Rolex and a pram.

Our lunch break consisted of cake eating, tea drinking and hiding out in the shade, before setting off again further along the river into Poulter Park.

Due to the fast flow and depth of the water, we could not wade along much of the river here, but we still came across a child’s bike, and of course lots more litter!

So what did we find? 1 watch, 1 passport, 1 bike, 1 santa hat, 1 hammer,  1 2012 calendar, 1 coconut, 1 golf ball, a king size mattress, a fridge, a motorcycle helmet, a large pipe, a scooter, 2 footballs, 3 chairs, 7 tyres, and of course, lots of plastic bags, bottles and wrappers.

 

We ended the day by showing how two minds really are better than one as we all worked together to ram the van full of all the equipment in some sort of organised manner (you’ll all be happy to know that Hannah and I were not flattened by any equipment when we unloaded the van!)

On a more serious note…These events truly demonstrate the impact that plastic waste is having on the environment, and why we all need to help tackle the plastic pollution issue now. It is great to see both regular and new faces coming along to our events – let’s keep up the good work!

See you next month!

Lucy and Hannah

Huge thanks for the warm welcome, and to everyone who helped unpack and pack up the van during the event, Rosie for supervising the Event Tent, and Sutton Council for organising the collection of all the rubbish the next day, Big Yellow Wandsworth for providing free storage space for our equipment and to our funders, Tesco!

Thank you to all our volunteers for coming: Chris, Steve, Neil, Tom, Damon, Tom, Charles, Rose, John, Joanne, David, Paul, Steve, Per, Nick, Sarah, Dave, Will, Simon, Tim, Martin, Derek, Guy, Stewart, Sheila, Chris, Phil, Luke, Lynda and Wally.