| Status: | Active, open to new members |
| When: | Monthly on Tuesday mornings 10:00 am We meet on the 4th. Tuesday of the Month. |
| Venue: | Forest Town library |
Seen and sorted!
You never quite know what you will find when you go out litter picking. Yes, inevitably, you will come across hundreds of cigarette ends; casually discarded by smokers but which take over 10 years, or longer, to decompose. Plus you find crisp packets, some neatly folded into triangles before being dropped or some looking as though they were torn open in a frenzy and then later chucked onto the pavement or pushed into a hedge.
Plastic bottles, beer cans, whisky bottles… yes plenty of bottles. I think we've picked up every sort of spirit bottle there is from crème de menthe to tequila. If only we were able to get money back on the bottles!
As a group, we are used to manoeuvring our pickers to collect the tiny jettisoned hair bobbles, empty tablet packets and even rawl plugs from men doing maintenance work on the pavement. Last month's novel haul was a hefty collection of rusted locks, keys, bolts and washers carefully strewn along a metre length of pavement.
What was this month's eye catching item?
A hefty, smelly (rodent used?) dog bed, stuffed under the hedge on Pump Hollow Road. This was spotted by our new recruit, Pat. The dog bed was too big for us to handle. With a photo and a
what3words location, Mansfield District
Council (MDC) was notified of this fly tipping.
Top marks to MDC! Within 24 hours they had been out and cleared away the infested dog bed.
MDC have always supported our Litter Picking
Group by collecting our filled bags and emptying overflowing bins that we've
reported to them.
Why don't you support our Litter Picking
Group too? We meet outside the Forest Town
library on the fourth Tuesday of each month
at 10 am.
Don't forget, little actions matter; whether it’s
individuals picking up stray bits of litter, or
groups such as ours trying to keep our
community litter free. Why not choose
to act with us?
Litter Pick Group Leader:
Susan Wright Meet 4th Tuesdays
Roadside litter epidemic?
According to a poll of 11,000 members of the AA Charitable Trust, Eastern England and Yorkshire and the Humber were the third most littered areas of the country with 57% of residents noticing a rise in rubbish.
Here are some hard facts; more than 2 million pieces of litter are dropped in the UK each day; in 2023-24 councils spent £957 million cleaning it up – or attempting to.
Everyone recognises that litter is getting worse and it's damaging the environment and our communities.
People no doubt agree we need tougher enforcement, better education and a cultural shift in how we view litter.
Everyone from government, businesses to individuals have a role to play.
So… why don't you join our Litter Picking Group?
We meet at the Forest Town, Library on the fourth Tuesday of the month at 10.00 and focus on the litter problem in Forest Town for two hours.
We need more volunteers to make a greater impact. Why don't you just turn up and join us? Bags, pickers, litter hoops, high vis vests are all provided and the council remove the full bags of litter.
Susan Wright