Our call for a clean up army

A gross manifestation of our inability to correctly dispose of waste was unearthed earlier this week ... a 130 tonne so-called fatberg!

This 25om long mass of congealed fat, wet wipes and nappies (among other unmentionable horrors) was found blocking a sewer in the heart of London.

The grotesque blob was a direct result, not of a poor sewerage system, but of people failing to dispose of their waste the right way.

The consequence in this case, is three weeks of hard work to dislodge the blockage and inconvenience to a number of households in the Whitechapel area.

When waste is incorrectly disposed off around our coastline, it has far greater consequences, not only for the visual beauty of our beaches, but the health of our wildlife.

Which is why we are backing the Marine Conservation Society’s Great British Beach Clean.

Our community owes much to the magnificent coastline we enjoy, but sometimes that love is not reflected in the way it is treated by an ignorant minority. This annual event not only helps see our beaches cleaned up, but provides an insight into the problems.

Last year it revealed that plastic bag littering was down (attributed to the 5p charge introduced in retail stores) while plastic bottle rubbish was up along with discarded wet wipes, which have increased by sevenfold in the last decade.

It would be great to think we’re sympathetic to the environment and improving our litter habits, but the horror of the London sewers suggests we might be getting worse.

Our environment, wildlife and ultimately our community is at risk. The call for clean up volunteers can’t be made loud enough.