Happy New Year!

Jon and I did our first rubbish walk of 2019 along Malmesbury Road on New Year’s Day, and we ended up with six bags of rubbish and recycling. Oh, and three hubcaps. According to 2016 statistics, there are 246,500 miles of roadway in the UK. At 6 bags a mile, that would be 1,479,000 bags of litter (and 739,500 hubcaps).

This rubbish haul consisted of the usual—crisp packets, smoking paraphernalia, and coffee cups. So many coffee cups: I think I collected Starbucks, Nero, Costa, Greggs, and McDonald’s, even if I didn’t get a photo of all of them.  There was also an unhealthy helping of sweet wrappers, mince pie foils, and polystyrene takeaway containers.

The usual recycling suspects were also present: Coca-Cola, Red Bull, Carlsberg. In all, we found 88 items of recycling: 11 glass bottles , 20 plastic bottles, and 57 aluminium cans. If multiplied across the entire road network, that would be:

  • 2,711,500 glass bottles
  • 4,930,000 plastic bottles
  • 14,050,500 aluminium cans

Or a total of 21,692,000 items that could be recycled. Please make it a resolution this year to help collect what you can. Those are big numbers listed up there, but if everyone pitched in to clean up their local patch, we would begin to make a dent in it. Also, please use reusable coffee cups and give them as gifts whenever possible!

We have set the dates for our 2019 Community Clean Ups and hope to see you this year at one of these events:

  • 6 April: Monkton Park
  • 15 June: Donkey Field
  • 14 September: Monkton Park
  • 9 November: Donkey Field

They are held from 10am until noon and whether you can only pop by for five minutes or stay for the full two hours, please stop by to say hello.

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