Volunteering is Good for the Soul: My Inner Womble Returns!

On Sunday morning we woke-up, rather bleary eyed, to the beeping alarm telling us to get up and get volunteering!

This was our second trip out to help the Water of Leith Trust do a river clean up, and although it was an early start, I was looking forward to it.  Wellies donned, coffee made and gloves looked out, we set off to get litter picking.

An inquisitive swan

We met up with about 30 cheery volunteers, all raring to go.  And it was great to be working alongside people as eager as me to get the mess picked.  The local swans and ducks were certainly interested in what we were all doing, and I'm sure they appreciated the  de-junking of their patch of river!

It was a bit depressing to be confronted with so much rubbish.  As well as the usual plastic bags and bottles, over the course of the morning we found:

• a drug takers' hang-out; complete with syringes, tin foil, dirty mattress and condoms.
• car boot sale leftovers; with loads of china ornaments and picture frames, blow up mattress and a cuckoo clock!
• and several fire extinguishers (why?)

But picking up rubbish from an area you love, does make you feel a whole lot better! There was a great team spirit about the morning.  If nothing else, at least we were all doing something positive about the rubbish, rather than walking on by, shaking our collective heads. 

JW even managed to do a quick plastic bag removal from a swan's nest.


Swan's nest before.

Swan's nest after.  (Don't worry, he didn't disturb the swans in any way).

And the final result from a couple of hours work!  A whole lot less rubbish in the river.

So, picking up the litter from the area I live in, is a definite success story for me in terms of doing something to make my community a better place to live. 

But, it has got me thinking that a lot more needs to be done to stop the rubbish from being thrown in the first place.

As a country, we have fines in place making littering and dumping illegal, but people still chuck rubbish left, right and centre (into the river in this case!),  because there is very little chance of them being caught and because they just don't care about the mess.

So, with this bee in my bonnet, it feels to me that our local councillors should be doing much more to stop littering and dumping from happening in the first place.  My wombling self now needs to figure out my next move.

I will definitely be taking part in our National Spring Clean, and  next month's river clean-up, but I can feel a letter or two coming on!  Watch this space...