A MILLION HOURS!
That’s how much time you’re giving to help spring clean up Britain
THE Great British Spring Clean has been hailed as the biggest environmental action ever seen on the British Isles.
So far nearly 540,000 volunteers have selflessly given more than one million hours of their time to make Britain a cleaner, greener place.
This vast army of ‘litter heroes’ is equivalent to the entire population of Liverpool or Manchester.
But these pledges are not mere words. Across the UK, volunteers are already making a huge impact.
So far an incredible 4,102 tons of litter have been picked up from streets, playgrounds, shopping parades, playing fields and beaches. This is the equivalent weight of more than 300 double decker buses.
Around 16,037 events organised by sports clubs, pubs, schools, community centres, churches, mosques and pensioners’ groups have brought people together in a singleminded attempt to clean up the place – and to raise awareness of the litter scourge.
According to the figures compiled by Keep Britain Tidy, this is 911,698 bags of rubbish, enough to fill 227,925 wheelie bins.
One of the most inspiring aspects of the Great British Spring Clean is the huge involvement of children. In all 169,267 pupils have taken part or are going to take part in the campaign before it closes on April 23. The tally of adults spring cleaning their part of the world stands at 367,195.
The campaign has been backed by Prince William, celebrities including Mary Berry and Prue Leith, and the United Nations.
The Daily Mail has long been at the forefront of efforts to stop plastic pollution in the UK.
This newspaper successfully campaigned to introduce a charge on plastic bags in supermarkets, and we are calling for a deposit return scheme on plastic bottles.
Last year, we organised the Great Plastic Pick Up, a voluntary litter pick with Keep Britain Tidy. Then, 20,000 people filled 17,000 wheelie bins with rubbish and picked up two million plastic bottles over one weekend. But the Great British Spring Clean, running from May 22 to April 23 has been even bigger and more ambitious.
Yesterday Keep Britain Tidy chief executive Allison Ogden-Newton said: ‘When we launched the Great British Spring Clean we aimed to create the country’s biggest-ever mass action environmental campaign and, with the help of the Daily Mail, we have done it.
Our litter heroes have collected more than 900,000 bags of rubbish so far, and given more than one million hours of time to the campaign and we would like to thank each and every one of them.