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.
