Eco tips for things to do:
- Avoid excess packaging wherever possible to reduce plastic waste and if you can’t, make sure you recycle it. Katie@villagegreen.tools in Herriard Village offers a huge selection of refills so that you can reuse plastic bottles and containers. She is open during lockdown, just email to make an appointment; her open days are Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays. You can get a small amount to trial and shower gel and washing up liquid smell amazing.
- Pick up litter. Philippa Brealey p.brealey99@gmail.com is an ACAN (Alton Climate Action & Network) member and had pulled together members from several like-minded groups including POTR Eco Church Group to take part in a bi monthly plastic patrol litter pick. Litter picks took place in August, September and October before the 2nd lockdown and were on one Saturday and one Thursday morning each month. Areas covered were mostly outside of Alton town centre and each was led by a walk volunteer lasting 1-1.5hrs. The litter was collected in different coloured bags and an ingenious way of weighing the litter was devised by standing on a pair of scales in a front garden. For example the following was collected, quite shocking
Sadly, the organised socially distanced groups of 6 have had to stop for the time being but Philippa has 12 litter pickers given to her by The Town Council along with some ACAN hi-vis vests which she is very happy to loan out so that anyone interested can carry on the good work when out and about on their daily exercise. Please email her and make a difference.
Litter Pick update! – 6 of us assembled and donned the new ACAN vests that were available to wear if we wanted to. (See picture of my back!). It was wet and cold, so an extra layer was much appreciated.
Lou Bagnall from Fill-up came to meet us and gave us each a paper wrapped snack pack of seeds, dried fruits and chocolate covered ginger! She had to go and open the shop, of course, but said that she would have loved to have come with us. Thank you Lou, they were lovely to munch on when we got back home with a cup of tea. Go and see her great shop on the high street, it’s full of foods and cleaning products for your own containers. We went in two separate groups and between us we collected 16.4 KILOGRAMS of litter in 1.5hrs!
Green bags (plastic) 5.6 kg
Blue bags (cans and bottles) 5 kg
Black bags (general) 5.8 kg.
Next walk … Saturday 19 December… 10 am meet outside the pavilion at Anstey Park
Bags and pickers provided
- Did you know that by 2050 we could have more plastic than fish in the sea? Watch the latest ocean clean up video Ocean Clean up . Get involved in the marine conversation society and call for access to waste collection globally.
October litter pick, the 2 groups coming together at the end to compare collections!
