On Saturday 22nd May 2021 a few groups in Lincolnshire organised a county wide litter pick to compact plastic waste and climate change.
Many of these have been done before such as litter picks on beaches across Lincolnshire, such as Mablethorpe beach in 2019. However, this litter pick was organised by a group from a secondary school in Skegness.
Lincolnshire Climate Conscious Students is the group that organised the litter pick. With the help of councillors, they managed to get nine litter pick sites throughout the county with groups doing it for 2 hours at a time.
Theo Griffiths, a 15 year old student and the coordinator of Lincolnshire Climate Conscious Students said: “We organised a county
wide litter pick with other environmental organisations and the main thing we wanted to achieve was showing how big of a problem plastic pollution is especially in waterways. The fact we picked up over 35 bags of litter across the county demonstrates just how big of a problem this is. One of the common items was facemasks and gloves.
“The main focus was waterways as we worked with Surfers against Sewerage. However, we also worked on grass verges at the sides of roads and walkways as well. We just want to get the word out there that plastic pollution is a problem and something needs to be done about it.”
There was an estimated 75 people that turned up to the litter picks altogether.
Victoria Hall was one of those people, she said: “We got one and a quarter bags filled, mostly sweet packets and empty plastic bags. There were a few face masks along the grass verges, one was actually stuffed into the crevis of a tree which was really annoying to get out and it’s possible that some were accidental as it is a walkway, but we did find a few.
“In the school, I work at we have stopped 10,000 crisp packets going to landfill, and that’s one school who could imagine how many could be recycled if all schools did this.”
Facemasks have been in the news as something that causes a lot of pollution and harm to animals such as masks being caught in birds feet or around their necks, therefore, groups such as Lincolnshire Climate Conscious Students are helping combat the plastic pollution that things such as facemasks and plastic bottle cause in the waterways and along grass verges.
