You may have noticed that things have been quiet on the Rubbish Walks blog recently. Quite frankly, the weather itself has been rather rubbish lately, and my usual walk home in the evenings is now in the dark and strewn with leaves. But the problem of litter hasn’t vanished nor are we hibernating: instead, we are planning to look ahead this winter to the other two strands of Off the Ground – education and projects.
We will be pulling together all the thoughts and ideas that we’ve had the past year and trying to form a coherent whole for how we can tackle the litter problem in Chippenham. And top of my personal To Do list is working on the new Off the Ground website, so thank you for your patience while I get that sorted. All going well, we’ll start to roll out new things in the new year.
Also in the new year – regular Community Clean Ups. Do you want to run your own Clean Up in your local patch? Please get in touch and we can help you organise one. Or perhaps you prefer doing your own thing – going on a rubbish walk requires very little equipment to get going and it really makes a difference to the community; see how you can get involved here.
In the meantime, I can recommend the recent television programme Hugh’s War on Waste. Although it’s not litter specific, the amount of food, clothing, and other waste that is tossed out in Britain is truly shocking, and I do think that litter is just another symptom of the throw-away society we now live in. From fast food to fast fashion, the constant drive for convenience and cost has caused us to ignore both the environmental and social impact inherent in this modern lifestyle. However, what’s clear from the programme is that it takes just a few people to say “Hey, this is wrong. We should do something about it.” to get the ball rolling.
So consider joining up with us, or Rubbish Walks Woodbridge, Rubbish Walks Heybridge, Rubbish Walks Witham, or starting your own Rubbish Walks group. Creating cleaner communities starts with us, and we can do it together, one step at a time.