This month’s cleanup had a bumper turn out of 60 volunteers! We met on Sunday morning in King George’s Park, Wandsworth to focus our efforts on a stretch between two bridges. We were treated to lovely sunny weather and an unexpected delivery of 8 huge pumpkin pies! These definitely helped re-energise the team at lunch break and we managed to cover a whopping 350m of river and an even greater distance along the banks. Here are some of the highlights…

As well as volunteers in the river in waders, we have teams of people helping to pull rubbish out onto the banks, bag it up and wheel barrow it back to the collection point, there are also litter pickers patrolling the banks and paths. So if you fancy getting involved there are always plenty of different roles to fill.

Volunteers were egged on by this sign that we were doing the right thing…

Seasonal treats provided a lunchtime sugar boost. A big thank you to Wally and his daughter for making the pies (and growing the pumpkin!) and to the Richmond University Baking Society for their delicious cup-cakes and loaf.

Heroic efforts were made to free this mattress from the river bed. Volunteers floated it downstream quite a distance before we were able to find a good bit of bank to lift it out onto.

The bank-side team provided essential man (and woman) power, to help haul it out of the river.

So, what did we find?

A chair, a drone, 10 bank cards, a stereo, two mattresses, a tyre, a bike wheel, two metal poles, numerous carpets/rugs, clothing, plastic sheets, a toy frog, tent poles, curtain rails and the usual collection of general litter and plastic waste.

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,  Wandsworth 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:

Sheila, Martin, Guy, Phil , Nick, Charles, Maddie, Jamie, Will, James, Hanna, Ken, Zead, Bryan, Wayne, Sabrina, Martina, Sabrina, Adan, Isabella, Margaret, Margaret, Hailey, Tamsin, Moshe, Rob, Jane, Sue, Zhugan, Aaron, J, Julia, Simon, Willliam, Suzanne, Alex, Jessica, Per, Felicity, Thomas, Peree, Paul, Andy, Soycelher, D, Will, Bev, Aamon, Matthew, Mikaela, Bianca, Felix, Deborah, Penny, Henry, Louis, Caitlin, Dave, Anna & Tom.