Join the Great British Spring Clean

The Keep Britain Tidy (#KeepBritainTidy), Great British Spring Clean (#GBSpringClean), launches next weekend with the aim of cleaning up Britain. Community groups, schools, businesses and many people across the land will be getting out there, picking up litter over the two week period (17/3/2023 to 2/4/2023). Our monthly litter pick around Wanstead (18/3/2023) will be one event people can join in to get involved. There are numerous people working across Wanstead trying to keep the place neat and tidy. Council cleansing teams and volunteer litter pickers all play a part. There are also the excellent volunteer litter picks on City of London Corporation land such as Wanstead Park and Flats. It is amazing just how much rubbish there is out there. People must see the bags stacked on the street in front of the Co-op awaiting collection. Then there is the skip on Christchurch Green. Some complain about the sight of the skip but if there wasn’t so much rubbish being deposited there would be no skip. Vision, who manage Christchurch Green for the council, tell of how the bins often get filled up with household waste. The Council also seeks to prosecute those caught fly tipping around the borough. It really is an infuriating, people who have no respect for the community they live in, behaving worse than animals. At times, the thought occurs as to where all this rubbish comes from – can people not produce less? This ofcourse is what we should all be doing. The introduction of the wheelie bins has seen recycling levels in the borough go up. The variety of stuff that can be recycled is increasing but the real aim must be to create less waste in the first place. The land and oceans around the world are saturated with plastic, Much of the planet is literally being choked. The outlawing of single use plastic in many places is a welcome development but it is not enough. We need to use less plastic. The supermarkets are slowly moving to more sustainable packaging but there are still glaring areas of waste. Why for example is so much milk and vegetables sold in plastic containers? We all need to adopt the re-use, reduce and recycle principles in our daily lives. Stop consuming so much then just chucking it aside. We also need to look across the board at waste produced. Why is there so much food waste? Can people not compost more of their vegetative waste – start a virtuous circle of compost production? The community composting initiatives started in Wanstead are going from strength to strength. There is much going on to save the planet, more and more people are getting involved but there needs to be a step change. There needs to be a fundamental change in the way we live, producing less waste, consuming less and generally living more sustainably on the earth. Why not make a start by joining one of the GBSC events – do your bit to make our area better. • Wanstead Village Litter pick starts from Woodbine Place at 10.05am on Saturday 18th March 2023