THANK YOU to all the amazing volunteers that, despite the rain, came out to join us on our clean up of the River Lea… Over 80 people turned up to help clear a phenomenal amount of rubbish – the amount pictured is about a third of the total waste collected!
Thanks also to the Lea Boaters, Plastic Pirates, Hackney Council, Canal & River Trust volunteers, Surfers Against Sewage, Lower Regent’s Coalition for all your support – your help made this event such a success.
Lessons learnt are that we cannot get a bottle deposit return scheme soon enough – plastic bottles and cans made up such a huge amount of the waste collected as well of course lots of other single use plastic. The amount of polystyrene found was also astonishing – this material really is terrible, easily blown around by the wind and easily broken down into smaller and smaller pieces; it also absorbs chemicals in the water creating toxic pellets which are easily ingested by wildlife…this stuff really needs to be BANNED…
In the meantime though it’s good to know we left the River that bit cleaner – see you at the next one we hope! ✌???