As part of our continued support of Eco Friends we recently helped out at the Million Mile Clean Brand Audit, lending one of our returned bulk bags to help sort through all that rubbish!
Now that Thatcham and Newbury have achieved plastic free status we wanted to continue our work and thought it was a great idea to join the SAS Million Mile Clean.
So 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.
This is where the re-used bulk bag came in handy, we emptied the rubbish for easy sorting, Jenny from Thatcham Refillable had the tally sheets at the ready and the counting began!
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.
More information on how to support the environment is available on the Eco Friends website - www.eco-friends.org.uk
