SEAL team spruce up their area
RUNCORN has its own squad of young eco-warriors who are already making an impact on cleaning up their neighbourhoods.
Team SEAL was the brainchild of friends Scarlett Johnson, Ebony Johnson, Alexis Mowat and Lexie O’Toole, and their crusading actions are now inspiring others to make a difference too.
Beki Mowat, Alexis’s mum, said Beki’s determination to help the environment first stirred when she was off school sick and she watched David Attenborough’s Our Planet series on Netflix.
She had soon organised her first litter pick, and before long her enthusiasm for the subject proved popular and soon she and her friends had formed Team SEAL. Having carried out litter picks around Halton Brook and Halton Lodge, beach clean-ups, asked the council and their school to go plastic and palm oil free, as well as making their own ecobricks.
They have also set up a book-sharing scheme, a toy swap project and even recruited the help of their headteacher at Holy Spirit Catholic Primary School, Alexis is also encouraging others to join her in having meat-free Mondays to help the planet.
Their actions have not gone unnoticed by their peers, and Beki said that other children were keen to help out when they spotted a litter pick under way in Halton Brooke – where the youngsters had become exasperated by glass smashed and left on the slides by callous older youths.
They have also started to give out badges to classmates, and are looking forward to outings to hear talks from Chester Zoo
The youngsters have caused such a stir that Shopping City has also decorated a vacant shop front with a display celebrating their achievements, and through social media they have gained support from as far away as America.
Arriva North West also loaned them the use of a bus to highlight lower carbon modes of transport.
Alexis has also been making her own homemade signs to place in windows with slogans such as ‘I want more fish in the sea rather than plastic’.
Beki described how the group took off after Alexis’s first litter pick.
She said: “It inspired the girls and they all started talking about it in school and they were going to do a big litter pick and it took on a life its ● own, and they came in and told me and they came up with the name themselves – I thought it was quite clever considering how young they are.
“They’ve got involved with Chester Zoo who are coming to do events, they’re very involved in doing stuff at the libraries.
“WWF are involved quite a lot and they’ve got Alexis is setting up a raffle to raise money for WWF.
“They’ve been quite involved with her.
“Their school is doing everything they say – they come up with ideas and the headteacher says ‘what do I need to do?’.
“They’ve set up a toy swap to stop toys going into landfill.
“The school donated some toys.
“They started book-hiding, something that’s going round the North West, where they read books and leave them for people to find and they read them and pass them on.
“It’s nice to see them doing something.
“It’s nice to see and other kids wanting to do it.
“There will be kids in the park and they’ll say ‘what are they doing?’, they’re fed up of playing in glass and with rubbish all over the place.”
The group is now receiving requests to join and generating interest further afield.
Beki said: “We’ve got people from America commenting on the page saying ‘ we’d love to do this’ and from different countries, which you’re like ‘wow’.”