Bank on us! 20k Santander staff join litter army

HIGH street bank Santander has given a boost to the Great British Spring Clean by pledging that more than 20,000 staff will take part.

It pushes the number involved in the Keep Britain Tidy campaign, backed by the Daily Mail, to 265,725.

In all, more than 6,252 litterpicking events have been organised between March 20 and April 13 this year.

The support from Santander, which has more than 800 branches, means this year’s campaign is on course to exceed the 563,000 who took part last year in Britain’s biggest ever environmental clean-up.

Allison Ogden-Newton, chief executive of Keep Britain Tidy, said: ‘ We have been overwhelmed by the response. We hope that many more employers will join us. The Great British Spring Clean is about getting people to start to notice and understand the impact littering behaviour has.’

On Saturday, more than 100,000 members of Girlguiding pledged to support the Spring Clean, joining companies like Lloyds, HSBC and Nationwide.Groups such as the National Trust, the Women’s Institute and the RSPCA have also offered support – along with the Prime Minister and more than 180 MPs of all parties.

Nathan Bostock, chief executive of Santander UK, said: ‘As a high street bank we sadly see every day the problem of litter blighting our high streets.

‘The Great British Spring

Clean campaign is a great initiative and we are delighted to join forces with organisations across the country to tackle this important issue.’

Mr Bostock said Santander will ask all its staff to get involved through the Great British Spring Clean website.

Other celebrities backing the campaign include Lord Sugar and Kirsty Allsopp. Yesterday the Campaign for

Protection of Rural England also added its support. Its chief executive, Crispin Truman, said: ‘It’s great to see people getting outdoors and making the countryside a better place for everyone: the next step is to drastically reduce the amount of litter that needs to be picked up with lasting solutions like an all-in deposit return system.’

Apart from being ugly, litter is also potentially harmful to wildlife. Yesterday the RSPCA revealed how it rescued a seal – nicknamed Colossus – which was caught up in discarded fishing netting. Alison Charles, of the RSPCA’s East Winch Wildlife Centre in Norfolk, said: ‘It was touch and go.

‘For the first three days he was worryingly quiet and almost motionless. But when he started hoovering up fish, we knew he was on the mend.

‘We hope to release him back into the sea before long. Every year, the number of seals admitted with injuries caused by entanglement in litter rises.’

‘Blighting our high streets’