RIVER OF TEARS
As 70,400 join the campaign, proof of why we must keep up litter war
THESE photos show just how vital the Mail-backed Great Spring Clean is to help clear the tide of litter blighting the nation’s waterways.
A year ago we celebrated the wonderful work of readers who transformed two sections of river in South Yorkshire from plastic-filled filthy eyesores to clean and free-flowing water.
Sadly the rubbish has gradually but relentlessly returned, graphically showing how the battle for a clean environment must go on.
With your help, however, in this year’s Great
British Spring Clean we can again hail magnificent achievements in countless locations nationwide. It’s a tough job but with your support, we know the campaign we are running with Keep Britain Tidy can make a difference.
In 2019, volunteers who turned out at Doncaster town centre and at a village a few miles away certainly did that by removing the rubbish marring these two spots. But since then, floods last November have added to the problems caused by littering and fly- tipping by sweeping litter downstream.
At the beauty spot at the River Don Aqueduct in Kirk Bramwith, near Doncaster, a terrible mess has accumulated.
It includes dozens of plastic bottles mixed in with tyres, balls, cans, toys, pipes, sacks and building debris. A short drive away, there is a similar scene on the River Cheswold outside Doncaster Prison where the flow goes under a bridge and down a weir.
Here a tree trunk stands out amid broken branches, plastic bottles, tyres and litter, including packaging and a gas canister.
Such scenes – which also show the importance of the Mail’s drive to Turn the Tide on Plastic – are repeated at pinch points on rivers and canals across the country.
Since the 2020 Great British Spring Clean was launched on January 25, an amazing 70,475 of you have already signed up.
But campaigners believe a cultural switch is needed for longterm progress. John Hourston, of the Blue Planet Society, said: ‘These pictures illustrate it brilliantly. It’s great so many people are helping but the problem will keep recurring. We are in a disposable society and need to get out of this single-use mentality.’
A spokesman for the Canal and River Trust added: ‘The solution is for people not to drop litter.’