Volunteers remove river plastic

NEARLY 50 volunteers took to the River Teifi and its banks in Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion with a mission to remove plastic that was polluting the waterway following flooding earlier this year.

A huge amount of litter was collected from the banks of the beautiful river including multicoloured rubble bags, black agricultural silage wrapping and general plastic litter such as drink bottles, tyres and traffic cones.

The Teifi River Clean project was organised by local residents Marco Rebora and Jill Sutton and supported by Llandysul Paddlers Canoe Centre and Club, West Wales Rivers Trust, Adventure Beyond and Canw Cymru / Canoe Wales.

The group brought together an enthusiastic army of volunteers, drawn from the local community, to carry out the first of hopefully future annual river cleans.

Marco and Jill said: “We were amazed by the support we received from the local community, there is clearly a real desire to care for our river. We knew the river was polluted with plastic but we were astounded at how much the volunteers collected.

“This just makes us more determined to roll out this project on future occasions.”

Harriet Alvis, project manager for West Wales Rivers Trust, said: “Plastic pollution in rivers isn’t just unsightly.

“It has a huge number of issues for our rivers, ranging from ingestion and entanglement of animals to leaching of harmful chemicals, to breaking up into microplastics that build up in the flesh of animals throughout the food chain.”

Thanks also go to Cllr Jayne Ludgate, Newcastle Emlyn’s Mayor, and from Llandyfriog Community Council, Cllr Derrick Richards and Cllr Ken Jones, who helped with the landbased litter pick.

Llandyfriog county councillor Wyn Thomas liaised with landowners and with Newcastle Emlyn RFC whose grounds were used as a finishing point for the litter collection.