PLASTIC PADDLE PATROL
Adventurer joins our campaign to clean up the country
A PADDLE boarder who runs plastic patrols to clean up the waterways has pledged her support for the Great British Spring Clean.
Lizzie Carr, 32, teaches volunteers how to ride inflatable paddle boards and then puts them to work with litter pickers on rivers and canals.
In 2017, the cancer survivor became the first woman to paddle board solo across the English Channel. The year before, she paddle boarded 400 miles from Godalming in Surrey to Kendal in the Lake District, cataloguing the plastic junk she found during the 22-day journey. It included more than 1,600 bottles and 40 footballs.
Lizzie’s achievements are all the more remarkable considering she only took up paddle boarding in 2013 to help with her fitness after radiotherapy for stage 2 thyroid cancer.
Now former corporate video project manager Lizzie, whose cancer ordeal inspired her to carve out a new way of living, is urging people to sign up to the campaign being backed by the Daily Mail.
With just a few days until the cleanup organised by Keep Britain Tidy begins, 422,642 public-spirited people have pledged to join the neighbourhood, beach and countryside clean-ups.
Lizzie, of Purley, south London, said she was ‘utterly horrified’ by the discarded plastic she encountered on the capital’s Regent’s Canal recently.
She added: ‘ Everywhere I looked there were bags, bottles and wrappers of one kind or another. I was appalled by the sheer volume of plastic I was witnessing and the impact it was having on wildlife.
‘When I started my plastic patrols I was considered an eccentric, but now people realise we are at a tipping point.
‘When I explain that 80 per cent of ocean plastic begins inland, people sit up and listen. Every piece of plastic we can collect in rivers and canals before it reaches the ocean is a victory. We photograph and log what we collect to understand where the problem areas are.
‘Collecting discarded plastic junk is dirty but rewarding environmental work and I would everyone to do their bit.’
The Mail has long campaigned against the scourge of plastic in the environment, putting pressure on politicians and businesses which led to the tax on single-use plastic bags and a ban on microbeads in cosmetics.
Meanwhile, research shows that four in five Britons (84 per cent) say the cleanliness of their community has a major impact on how they feel.
The most common neighbourhood gripes are litter (66 per cent), dog mess (64 per cent) and fly-tipping (42 per cent), and 55 per cent say they would be put off buying a house in a messy neighbourhood.
The study, commissioned by cleaning experts Kärcher in partnership with Keep Britain Tidy, also found that people living in clean community spaces reported higher levels of happiness. In an attempt to restore pride in communities, the organisations have made a commitment to deep-clean a neighbourhood in need of some TLC.
Jack Sweeney, of Kärcher, said: ‘We can all relate to how it feels to walk down dirty streets and the impact this can have on our mood, but the good news is we found that living in a clean environment actually makes us happier and gives us a sense of pride in our communities.’
He added: ‘That’s why we want to hear from Britons who may have given their local area a tidy-up but need a helping hand to improve the cleanliness of their neighbourhood.’
Allison Ogden- Newton, of Keep Britain Tidy, said: ‘We’re delighted to be working with Kärcher on their community clean as part of our Great British Load of rubbish: Lizzie’s loot Spring Clean.’ To get your neighbourhood cleaned, follow and message Kärcher UK on its Facebook or Instagram channels. Explain why you think your area deserves to be cleaned and include some images of the areas most in need of attention.
The Great British Spring Clean starts on Friday.
‘We are at a tipping point’