SONS & THE COMMUNITY
LITTER PICK 2020
It was a beautiful sight to behold, so clean, so clear, you could see through the water to the river bed below.
Sons of the Thames Rowing Cub want to retain the incredible, clean and beautiful environment that the lockdown proved we can all allow to exist.
Thanks to the total lockdown of the country back in March, so few people were about for several months that the river effectively cleared off the backlog of rubbish that, sadly, so many, so callously toss into it - although the bad news is that stuff is now bobbing about in the North Sea and beyond. Unfortunately, with the gradual return of ‘normal life’ we have simultaneously seen the return of the ‘normal way of life’ with an increasing amount of junk floating about in the Thames and it’s tributaries thanks to an abysmal, lethargic lack of respect for the the environment.
On Sunday 20th September 20+ members of Sons of the Thames Rowing Club helped raise awareness of river cleanliness by litter picking the foreshore, Thames path and local public spaces, including Furnival Gardens and Upper Mall Space. Throughout the litter pick a great many members of the public came forward to thank us for our efforts, which will not be our last. In just three hours we collected so much rubbish we filled one and a half of of the club’s two commercial sized recycling bins and almost two thirds of the general waste bin.
Covering an area three times the span of Hammersmith Bridge, we collected a huge range of items, from the all too common drinks cans, bottles and their tops, through to scissors, a football and even the wand of an old vacuum cleaner!
River clean-ups have revealed that 60% of litter in the River Thames is made of plastic and that there would be much less rubbish in the water if folks were simply to recycle rather than simply dump it in the water or just abandon it on the ground either on the towpath or in one of the wonderful open spaces by the riverside.
