River Clean Up

This weekend I decided to unleash my inner Womble and get involved in picking up the 'things that the everyday folks leave behind'!

Sunday saw myself, JW, KitKat and Al, up with the larks, donning our wellies and off volunteering with the Water of Leith Conservation Trust, to litter pick along a stretch of the picturesque waterway which runs through the heart of Edinburgh.

Litter and rubbish strewn about our streets and wildplaces is something that really makes me get on my proverbial soap box and bemoan society; the people that create the litter and the companies with their disposable packaging that are lurking away behind it all.

So, as part of my aim to have a better life, I decided to stop moaning and just get on with making things better.  A quick search on the internet came up with the date and time to meet up with other like minded Wombles.  So just after 10am, enmasse, we set off, armed with litter grabs and bin bags to see what we could find.

It felt so good to get that rubbish picked up.  All those plastic bottles, sandwich and crisp packets, cigarette packets and beer cans; all getting picked up at last.

It was really peaceful work with the ducks for company.  And it was great to pull out horrors from the river for them, such as car park signs, old bikes, rusty gates, traffic cones; not to mention the three supermarket trolleys and hundreds of plastic bags (and this was only on a 15 minute stretch).

After a couple of hours of picking, our troup of 43 had collected up an 'impressive' mound of rubbish from the short stretch we were working on.  And the improvement was really tangible.  No more plastic bags caught in the bushes, no more beer cans shoved in the undergrowth!

Just imagine how much there is in the whole river, if this is from a section you could walk in 15 minutes, considering it would take you a good few hours to walk the full length!  But at least someone is doing something about it.

I really enjoyed my morning.  Not only did I get to clean up some litter, but I got a good dose of fun exercise and met up with a group of good people.

The group was well organised by Water of Leith Conservation Trust and there was no hanging about, it was just a case of getting stuck in and on with the job.

I will certainly be doing my Wombling bit again!