The three of us, Jeff, Maldwyn and myself, met at Straws Bridge on a pleasant dry day. Jeff had spoken to our "Lone Ranger" (John Brierley) on the phone and he said that he does a regular litter pick on the Trail at weekends but not including the Erewash canal towpath. So as we began working our way south along the Trail with our litter pickers at the ready we were not expecting a big litter haul. This turned out to be the case until we reached Wards recycling plant on the Quarry Hill Industrial estate. This plant is located along the side of the Trail and the grass vergers here were covered in small bits of plastic. We started to pick up this litter until realising that there was a continuous flow of "confetti" coming from the processing machinery at the Plant. We abandoned the exercise and Jeff agreed to contact Erewash Borough Council about the problem. We continued along the Trail without incident except to comment on the significant increase in litter along the stretch of the canal towpath between Stanton Gate and our finish at Sandiacre (Station road bridge) We ended up with nearly six bags of rubbish between us.
It is intended to organise one more Workday, this session, to cover the stretch between Sandiacre and Long Eaton - watch this space.
I contacted EBC about the litter from the Ward's recycling plant. I was told that a Neighbourhood Officer would pay them a visit. On a ride down the trail today I noticed that it looked much cleaner - have they taken action, or was it the wind?
ReplyDelete