Tackling rubbish Unexpected items in bagging area
OUR campaign to Keep Gloucestershire Glorious has kicked off – and unearthed a few surprising finds.
Organised by the Gloucestershire Echo, Gloucester Citizen and Gloucestershire Live, throughout August teams will be spending several hours on a Saturday tackling places across the county nominated by you.
Our first destination was Great Western Road in Gloucester, near Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, where among the more obvious beer cans and laughing gas canisters there were one or two less ordinary discoveries.
Along with a vast a mount of plastic they found a fairly new pair of Calvin Klein boxer shorts, a full bottle of shower gel and an expensive left Nike trainer.
Among those busy with the litter pickers were Gloucester MP Richard Graham and Rachael Sugden, senior editor for Reach plc in Gloucestershire.
She said: “We were stunned to bag up four huge sacks of litter in just two hours from only a 200 metre stretch.
“There was inevitably a lot of plastic bottles and cans, chocolate wrappers and crisp packets. There were also thousands of discarded cigarette butts.
“The onus should be on all of us to care about the places where we live and work - and remember the impact litter has on everyone.”
She continued: “Thank you to Richard Graham MP and the volunteers who joined us for the first clean-up of the campaign - and to the many people who took the time to stop and speak to us while we were at work.
“Our team will be joining volunteers at locations across the county on Saturdays in August, clearing up the grot-spots nominated by our readers as part of the Keep Gloucestershire Glorious campaign.
“There is still time to sign up your group to the campaign as we hope to
make a difference and keep our streets clean across the county.
“We look forward to meeting more of our readers and neighbours at the next clean-up day in Cheltenham this weekend.”
Mr Graham was heartened by the response from members of the public.
He said: “It was good to join Gloucestershire Live on a litter picking initiative.
“Several members of the public came up to appreciate this and Amin Kham from Primal Boxing wanted to recreate something similar in Barton which is what it is all about – encouraging lots of people to get involved and take ownership of their patch.
“A cleaner Gloucester will only happen when lots and lots of people care enough to litter pick.”
We are looking for volunteers to help on Saturdays throughout August (10am-1pm) as we work to clean up the county.
We want to hear from community groups, businesses and anyone with pride in their local community – we will provide the black bags and some refreshments on the day. The remaining dates are:
August 10: Swindon Road (Queen Street alleyway), Cheltenham
August 17: Cinderford High Street, Cinderford
August 24: Kingsholm Road, Gloucester
August 31: Park End Road, Gloucester If you or your group can help, email jennifer.phillips@reachplc.com or tom.gibbon@reachplc.com
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A cleaner Gloucester will only happen when lots and lots of people care enough to litter pick Richard Graham MP