Today was our sixth Chippenham Community Clean Up and our second in Pewsham Park. The weather may have been cold and grey, but it was certainly drier than June! It was great to see a mix of familiar and new faces: Rob, Margaret, and Teresa are rubbish walk veterans; Liam, Louise, and Summer have started a new tradition involving cakes; and Will was a fantastic help in both the clean up itself and putting away all our bits and bobs. Craig has become Master Equipment Wrangler and I think he also managed to find the most rubbish today. And both Beverly and myself would like to thank our respective partners of Simon and Jon not only for their help today, but also for the acceptance of what has become an all-consuming mission to eradicate litter in Chippenham!
At first glance, the park looked much cleaner than it did in June, but the number of bags found turned out to be similar (June: 8 bags recycling, 10 rubbish; October: 10 bags recycling, 8 rubbish). However, participants dug a bit deeper in the hedges and I believe we’ve started to get to the “litter of ages”: wrappers and recycling that have been hanging around for years. While recording the recycling tally, many cans had a Best Before of 2012 or earlier. Indeed, one had an old-style ring pull opening.
The final recycling tally was 39 glass bottles, 110 plastic bottles, and 150 cans. I’ll be publishing the full list of brands later, so please stay tuned if you’re curious about what the people of Pewsham have been drinking and dropping. All of these have been properly disposed of at the recycling centre, and many thanks go to Chippenham Town Council for collecting the rubbish and Wiltshire Council for the loan of the equipment.
Please get in touch if you would like to get involved in our next Community Clean Up (7 November, Monkton Park). If you’ve been encouraged to go on your own rubbish walk, please feel free to post about it on our Facebook page, or consider starting your own local site like Rubbish Walks Woodbridge, Rubbish Walks Heybridge, and Rubbish Walks Witham. You are not alone in the battle against litter!
Fences might make good neighbours, but they are rubbish when it comes to litter … especially in Pewsham. The open areas in this fence are magnets for rubbish, and Craig, Teresa, and Will spent a lot of time clearing up this area.
A few of the 299 recyclable items in situ.
Beverly and Simon patrolled the border between Pewsham Park and King’s Lodge School.
Margaret kept busy along the paths and hedges.
Rob excavates a nest of recyclables.
It was great to meet Liam, Louise, and Summer. And did I mention they brought cake?
Saturday’s Clean Up showed how everyone working together can make light work of problem areas. Now if the country as a whole can just show a united front against littering!
