Excited litter picker.

[Wild-Woman]

Now you might think I've lost the plot but Im doing something on Saturday that most people would probably turn their noses up at.
We are doing a 3 1/2 mile walk out to a small bay on the banks of the Thames to litter pick.Why? Well the bay is an area that is used by migratory waders over winter. The tide of the Thames washes all the muck down from London-plastic bags, bottles,rubbish all matter of flotsom and jetsom.
The area is so important for these birds that when the RSPB asked for volunteers to do the job, we felt honour bound to help these beautiful creatures out. I'm really looking forward to it.It's apparently good humoured, dirty and amusing-so that suits me fine. The only draw back is there are no loos so that's going to prove interesting!!!!
So biological warfare suit, wellies, gloves and litter picker in hand think of me and have a good chuckle on Saturday. ww

[Mark43]

Nice one ww.Your good deed for the year i would think.

And if you find any treasure i'll go halves with you ok.

[eeyore]

Good on you WW, Its my job to get people to do stuff like this for my employers so I have total respect for people who volunteer their time in this way - last sunday my guys removed about 8 sacks of rubbish from a local lake - no treasure though unless fishing weights count.

[Oy]

Good for you WW!

Sounds like a good photo opportunity

[Ollie]

I applaud you ww if there were more people as like minded as you then maybe we would not get so much rubbish cluttering up our beautiful countryside in the first place
Roger

[Wild-Woman]

Hi all. Just back from the big litter pick. Had a good laugh and enjoyed knowing that whilst we had the laugh it was all in a good cause too.
The bay we cleaned was on the south bank of the Thames almost facing Southend. We could see it in the distance.
The bay, St Marys bay is a site of special interest, not accessible by the general public and is used by migratory birds mainly during the winter.Many years ago it was used by smugglers.
The original idea was to walk to it but it changed and we were shipped out by trucks. We would have been all in by the time we got there in the heat today-and no loos!!
After the usual H&S talk, we got cracking.
What a load of rubbish- couldn't believe how many bags we filled. Mainly all plastic stuff and bits of carpet for some reason!!?? There was all sorts of unpleasantries, that I'll let you guess at, and the weirdest thing was a two foot high Buddha! Don't ask!!
When we breaked for lunch, we sat amongst the flowers and watched the damsel and dragonflies. We also had Meditterranean gulls above us, egrets,herons and meadow pipits.
We discovered an area that was occupied LR plovers so we left them in peace and moved around the back of the salt marsh. Caught up plastic rope was the main problem here and we a tug of war with it in some places.
When we had finished, I was disgusted at the amount of trash-generated by us humans- that we had actually cleared.It completely filled the truck and more.
Now, I'm sun burnt, hot, dirty and worn out...but I feel great and I'm looking forward to doing more. Most of all it was fun and we met some great people who care deeply about the environment and made friends with them.
I'd recommend it to anyone. Julie

[May]

Well done you!

[Jonny]

Yeah, well done you, did you break open the buddah to see if was full of money.............Jon

[Wild-Woman]

No. It was a bit spooky actually Jonny. I was glad to bag it and get it on the truck.

Lots of Carling cans washed up too- strangely unopened!!! We didn't try them. ww

[Jonny]

Originally Posted by Wild-Woman

No. It was a bit spooky actually Jonny. I was glad to bag it and get it on the truck.

Lots of Carling cans washed up too- strangely unopened!!! We didn't try them. ww

I used to work for a firm that cleaned ponds and lakes, using diggers and such like and we used to find some strange stuff too, I once found a paintball gun in all the slop that was comming out a pond ................Jon