Richmondshire communities are being encouraged to join forces to support this year’s Great British Spring Clean.
The district council is offering litter picking kits to groups and organisations so they can pledge their support for the Keep Britain Tidy campaign.
The Great British Spring Clean brings together individuals, community organisations, businesses and councils to show they love where they live.
Groups across the district can borrow equipment – and the council will collect the bagged litter from designated places.
“Litter is a blight on our countryside and bad for our wildlife and the environment,” said chairman of the council and Richmond ward councillor, Councillor Stuart Parsons, who joins monthly litter picks in the town.
“We want to see Richmondshire’s environment cleaned up and we hope local volunteers will help us do that – but we would like to co-ordinate the picks to ensure there is no overlap with other volunteers,” said.
“We would also like to give priority to cleaning up route of the upcoming Tour de Yorkshire as this would help with the clean up prior to the race.”
Keep Britain Tidy chief executive Allison Ogden-Newton OBE said: “We are delighted that Richmondshire is supporting this year’s campaign and would like to thank them for their support.
“Without councils across the country giving the campaign their backing, our volunteers would not be able to do the incredible job they do.”
This year’s campaign will not only see tonnes of litter being removed from the environment on our doorstep, it also aims to rescue thousands of the plastic bottles and aluminium drinks cans that are simply thrown on the ground but could, very easily, be recycled.
Volunteers will be asked to separate the litter they pick into three bags: one for plastic bottles; one for aluminium cans and a third for the rest of the rubbish.
To find out more about the Great British Spring Clean visit www.keepbritaintidy.org
The Great British Spring Clean will run from March 20 to April 13, 2020.
It is the country’s biggest mass-action environmental campaign and was first run in 2017. In 2019, 563,163 volunteers took part, including more than 175,000 school children. In total, volunteers collected more than 4,300 tonnes of litter – enough to fill more 239,000 wheelie bins!
