The Great British Spring Clean 2018
Our March event was part of The Great British Spring Clean!
The Rivers Trusts joined Keep Britain Tidy in assembling an army of #litterheroes for a UK wide mass cleanup. Did you know 80% of plastic in the oceans comes from land, and rivers are a significant pathway for it to get there? Well that is why in March this year, rivers trusts up and down the country held volunteer events to help clean up our rivers and beaches. So we stepped up on the Wandle!
The day started in the usual way, with a Welcome Talk and Health & Safety briefing, and after that, our Litter Heroes set off to clear Waterside Way in Merton.
We have cleaned this site a fair few times now, and we always find large carpets, and today was no exception. We hauled this one out at the beginning of the event, and there were more to come.
Parts of a car started to emerge as well, such as tyres, a car bonnet …
.. an exhaust pipe…
And the car seat….
We have no idea if these were all from the same car, or bits of several different ones!
A computer keyboard was found so I could start writing this blog on site.
And a new toy for myself, a little squid which I took home and kept.
At lunchtime we were all starving, so we all headed back to eat our lunches, cake and warm up a bit with tea and coffee.
In the afternoon, some more great finds were discovered.
A razor shell…
A sad teddy bear
And a fyke net!
So what did we find? 1 fyke net, 1 tennis racket, 1 scooter, 1 walking stick, 1 Christmas tree, 1 sink, 1 squid toy, 1 car bonnet, 1 exhaust pipe, 1 toilet seat, 1 car seat, 1 sad teddy bear, 2 umbrellas, 2 frying pans, 2 traffic cones, 2 coconuts, 3 hoovers, 3 carpets, 3 wooden fencing posts (1 with its concrete base), 3 radios, 5 tyres, bits of several small kids’ bikes, bags and bags and bags of rubbish – I think we got through 120 sacks at least!
Huge thanks everyone who helped unpack and pack up the van during the event, Rosie for supervising the Event Tent, and the Waste Team at 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, Tesco!
Thank you to all our volunteers for coming: Aaron, Andy, Benit, Chris E, Chris S, Daniel, Dave, David, Derek, Ed, Eddie, Frank, Gideon, Guy, Ian, Jamie, Jane, Joanne, Joe, John, Johnny, Madeline, Neil, Nick, Patrick, Paul, Penny, Per, Phil R, Phil S, Rory, Rose, Sheila, Simon, Steve B, Steve Mc, Steve M, Stewart, Su, Thomas, Tom, Wally and William.
