Having moved nearly 4 years ago it was apparent that there area had a litter problem.
I searched for posts on local groups and found various litter picks from the past but nothing that had happened for a while.
I contacted another local group Dartford Litter Pickers and got some advice and how I went about setting something up. I contacted local council and and they supplied me with some equipment and SEGS was formed (Swanscombe,Ebbsfleet, Greenhithe,Stone) Litter pickers.
We started doing monthly group picks and as I only have Sundays free we arranged them on Sundays once a month and tried getting local businesses to supply some snacks / refreshments.
Picture from one of our group picks.
Although the group picks were great and we were collecting 15-20 full blacks sacks of litter every time we noticed that a month between some litter was appearing back.
I applied to become a keep Britain litter ambassador and was selected and joined the facebook group. It was here that I saw a post from someone called Commit To Your Street. The idea being people commit to keep a road or roads litter free and do so as and when they can during the week or weekend. This has a big benefit as not everyone can make group picks.
We had a massive response and lots of roads are now looked after by people and the council have supplied litter pickers and high viz and we hand them out. We then log how much we collect and I am amazed that so far we have collected.
To date 252 black sacks worth of litter have been collected that’s 1170kg achieved by 198 volunteer hours. Awesome work everyone
I am proud of what everyone has achieved and even the town major phoned me personally to thank me and offer support. We have just been awarded £540 funding which we will use on promotional items and equipment.
As well as group picks and the commit to your street campaign I have started plogging.
This is picking up litter while jogging. This combines two things that I am quite passionate about. I have done a few of these and gradually getting more people on board. I was out running and hated running past the litter so decided I would take out the litter picker and bag holder and see what I could do.
I managed a full bag on my normal 5k route. It is a slow jog as you end up stop starting but your getting out keeping fit and helping the local community.
The plogging is a work in progress as obviously not everyone that litter picks runs/jogs. But gradually I hope to get more people involved. The feedback from the locals is encouraging and we have over 200 people that have liked our page and we have a closed group for those signed up to the commit to your street campaign.
https://www.facebook.com/SEGSLitterpickers/
This is me out plogging
If anyone wants any advice or help on setting up a group then email us on
segslitterpickers@gmail.com
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ianprunning 