Student and staff volunteers from across the University united in the community litter pick event for Go Green Week despite appalling weather and road closures.
Together with Debbie Merrick Community Engagement Officer from Worcester City Council, they set about cleaning up verges, pathways and roads neighbouring the St Johns campus collecting a total of 9.06 kg of rubbish and two bags full of plastic bottles and cans for recycling.
Students taking part for the first time in this type of activity were surprised by the extent of litter especially where it was in close proximity to bins.
Jordan commented “Why didn’t they use the bin when it’s just two metres away? That’s just crazy”.
Litter of all kinds was found crammed into the undergrowth of verges where it can cause serious damage to local wildlife. Many found the litter pick rewarding; benefiting the local community aesthetically, helping wildlife, learning new skills (by the end of the session everyone was very adept at using the litter pincers!) socialising with friends and having fun!
The waste was varied ranging from crisp and sweet wrappers to large and tiny chunks of polystyrene packaging. Polystyrene is a particularly problematic material as it takes at least five hundred years to decompose, is difficult and costly to recycle and causes choking and starvation in wildlife.
Whilst picking the litter, students discussed some of the issues associated with plastics disposal, in particular the growing Great Pacific garbage patch also known as the Pacific trash vortex (an enormous slick of plastic waste in the Pacific ocean which is having a devastating impact on marine eco-systems and has considerable implications for future human health).
Regular litter picks take place at the campus, if you are interested and would like to take part please email matt.smith@worc.ac.uk
I know the students were hoping to top the ‘finding a fiver’ story from a couple of years ago, but it wasn’t to be this time. In fact no really unusual ‘finds’ and luckily no unpleasant finds, which we have come across unfortunately. Its always leaves you feeling good after helping with a litter pick, and I know I always spend the next few days with my eye’s down looking for litter to pick up and bin.
We had a really strong turn out from students and staff (in poor weather and on a difficult day for getting into the Uni with road closures from flooding). Well done everyone for getting stuck in despite this. It was great to see the area looking so much tidier after the clean-up. It’s not only nice to see but will be a much happier environment for wildlife e.g. hedgehogs will often get stuck in plastic containers, netting, beer can plastic – but they can’t if its not there in the first place. Littering wouldn’t be a problem if everyone disposed of their waste responsibly. Remind those you know how much effort and cost goes into cleaning up after litter bugs!