Another month had passed since our July Litterpick. In the intervening weeks one or two volunteers had emptied the various sacks we’ve left around. That’s meant that in most cases the sacks have been saved from overflowing. And there has been even more regular emptying of the OWL litter bin.
Our regular monthly OWL litterpicks are when we aim to not only empty all of the rubbish sacks but also to clear up the rest of the rubbish that gets left around and thrown around. (If people can take full bottles and cans to the woods, why can’t they take their empties away with them?! Answers on a postcard.)
First stop, the nude sunbathing area. What did we say about bags not overflowing? This one was getting close!
Down to work emptying the bag
Then some bag-replacement which will hopefully provide enough capacity that the three bags don’t start overflowing before we can get back to them.
It’s funny what we find in the woods while clearing up the hot spots. It’s usually condoms, condom foils, lube sachets and wipes. Occasional bottles of poppers, maybe a vinyl glove. We weren’t sure what activity had been going on here; obviously some education of some sort!
But flicking through the book some of us understood why we’d got a liking for cruising – our early years were possibly informed by it having something to do with being in the woods and playing with balls!
Onward, and the collection was certainly growing. Nevertheless, good to see the rubbish sacks being so well used.
OWL volunteers clear litter from everywhere they can find it. Along the tracks
and in the hot spots.
Back to base to dump our first loads (and there’s a lot of dumping of loads in these woods!) and time for a well-earned break.
Then back for another trawl through different areas to ensure that we’d collected all we could. And another interesting find. We’ve seen guys cruising on bikes and electric scooters. This chap must have started young!
Then the preparation of the bags ready for collection. The totals: Fifteen sacks of general rubbish. Seventeen sacks of recyclables, a child’s bike and a traffic cone. Add that to the thirty-five sacks collected since our last Tuesday litterpick. That’s an amazing SIXTY SEVEN sacks of rubbish in a month.
Big thanks to our OWL volunteers.
(Please note, we respect everyone’s right to anonymity and only show pics of those willing to have them posted. No inferences should be drawn from anyone’s participation in an OWL litterpicking session)