Tag Archives: Litter

Wandle Cleanup: January 2020, Merton

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We had an excellent turn out on Sunday for our first cleanup of the year at North Road, Merton. 49 volunteers came along to lend a hand and we were delighted to welcome 20 new faces as well as plenty of familiar ones. We were treated to some unseasonably warm weather and some lovely sunshine – there has even been an incident of mild sunburn among the Wandle Trust staff!

With a heavily rubbish laden stretch of river to tackle, we got started about 400m downstream where a couple of fallen trees had helpfully trapped rubbish as it floated down towards the Thames.

Further upstream we found another one, only this rubbish collection seemed to be held together by rancid fat and lots of polystyrene balls – a frustrating and smelly floating fatberg-esque mix that was very difficult to clear! (Read more about the big problems fatbergs cause in our sewers here).

Looking much better after a valiant effort to extract lots of tiny bits of plastic

Meanwhile, an essential ‘terrestrial’ team litter picked the park, helped bag up all the rubbish that came out of the river and transported it back to the rubbish pile in wheelbarrows.

An particularly high number of plastic bottles were pulled out

After lunch we finished off the final stretch of river alongside the storm tanks and a stylish find meant that Polly left the event looking even cooler than when she arrived…

Over the course of the day volunteers found a typically weird and interesting mix of items:

So, what did we find?

8 tyres, 7 footballs, 7 number plates , 3 toys, 2 traffic cones, 2 handbags, 2 statues, 2 chairs, 2 duvets, 2 coconuts, 2 hula hoops, a driving licence, a scooter, a kettle, a butter knife, LOADS of plastic bottles and lots of other general rubbish.

A special thank you to everyone who helped unload in the morning and pack up the van at the end of the event, Dave for supervising the Event Tent, Merton Council for organising collection of all the rubbish, Big Yellow Wandsworth for providing free storage space for our equipment and to our funder, Thames Water.

Thank you to all our volunteers for coming:

David, Tony, Emma, Tom, Kamile, Andzelika, James, Jamie, Tom, Stewart, Derek, Guy, Aaron, Martin, Andy, David, Tony, Chris, Mark, Neil, David, Will, Trudi, Matthew, Cindy, Fiona, Sam, Roderick, Kyle, Ed, Alex, Will, Sally, James, Kay, Lisa, K, M, Sanna, Wally, David, Sheila, Charles, Phil, Paul, Peter, Matthew, Eamonn & Kim.

Wandle Cleanup: March 2019: Wandsworth

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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.