As part of our commitment to the environment we were keen to keep moving forward and now that Thatcham and Newbury have achieved plastic free status we thought it was a great idea to join the SAS Million Mile Clean.
On Saturday 14th September, Eco Friends joined forces with Thatcham Litter Pickers, a well established community group run by Kate Dempsie to make the most of the litter pickers who meet at a different locations around Thatcham each month.
Eco-Friends advertised the event well and we had plenty of volunteers turn up to help, one person even came all the way from Basingstoke to join us.
We decided that it would be easier to count the plastic rubbish back at “base” rather than try to do it as we go, so the 30 or so litter pickers went out armed with general rubbish bags and recycling bags, after the first few minutes the first volunteer, who happened to be the Mayoress of Thatcham appeared with a full bag.
Local business and Plastic Free Champion; Rivar Sand and Gravel loaned us a re-used bulk bag into which we emptied the rubbish for easy sorting, Jenny from Thatcham Refillable (one of our Gold Champions) had the tally sheets and Eloise from the Silver Champion, The Little Zero Waste Home pretended to shoot us with a litter picker (using the force to get rid of single use plastics :-))
The amount of litter gathered in one hour was vast, about 25 bags in total. People were really interested in what we were doing and how this is going to be used to hold the plastic polluters to account. The more evidence that is gathered the more SAS can demand that producers reduce their plastic and switch to models of reuse and refill.
Now we have the kit from SAS we can do more litter picks and hopefully joining forces with the Thatcham Litter Pickers we will rid the streets of the plastic rubbish until companies cease to use it at all.
Plastic Free Thatcham & Thatcham Litter Pickers
Comments