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.