Action Against Litter Newsletter – Issue 9

Volunteers needed for litter picks.

• Saturday 12th April 10am St Peter’s Village meet at the ‘stocks’
• Saturday 26th April 10am Pierremont Park Broadstairs meet in front of Pierremont Hall
• Saturday 3rd May 10am Viking Bay Broadstairs meet in front of ‘The Old Look Out’
• Saturday 24th May 10am Memorial Rec. Broadstairs meet at the gates next to bowls club
• Saturday 31st May 10am St Peter’s Village meet at the ‘stock’s

Can you lend a hand for an hour?
If you’d like to join us, as an individual, as a family, with friends, or as a whole club or society. Bring your own gloves, we will have pickers and bin bags.
Broadstairs Town Team.

Since November 2024 the Cleanup UK Hubs have all been running litter picks and lending equipment to local volunteers who are passionate about keeping our communities clean and tidy. Ark Cliftonville Cultural Space held their first litter pick in January, managing to collect eight bags despite the high winds and rain. The group would like to encourage any local litter pickers or groups to get in touch to borrow their kit.

Newington Community Centre runs a litter pick every Monday at 10am and has collected 28 bags since November. They have a special Great British Spring Clean litter pick planned on Monday 24 March at 10am and would like to invite any local people to join in! There is a new Hub joining soon at Ellington Park Café, with a Great British Spring Clean event planned at 2pm on Saturday 29 March at 2pm. This is hosted by the Ramsgate Nordic Walking Group – everyone is welcome.

And last but by no means least the Ramsgate Litter Pickers, via the Radford House Hub, have collected a whopping 510 bags (and counting!) since October. This is a truly staggering amount of litter and these amazing volunteer pickers are an inspiration to us all! Ramsgate also has a number of Great British Spring Clean events between Friday 21 to Sunday 30 March. There are more details on the Great Ramsgate Spring Clean Facebook page.

If you would like to find your nearest hub and how to borrow litter picking equipment please go to www.cleanupuk.org.uk

The Ramsgate litter pickers joined CleanupUk in October and since then have cleared 510 bags of rubbish from the streets of Ramsgate. They have a hub at Radford House and lend out litter pick equipment.

Congratulations go to Ramsgate Litter Pickers group members Terry Baldock, Amanda Halliwell and Michael Jarvis on receiving Ramsgate Society Community Champions awards for 2024.

The awards are given to local people who, in the opinion of the Society’s Executive. The committee has made an exceptional contribution to the quality of life in the town. The Society aims to recognise individuals and groups for the work they do to make Ramsgate a better place to live and visit.

The three were nominated by Eastcliff Councillor Corinna Huxley, who praised them for their continuous efforts to make sure large areas of Ramsgate remain litter free. Terry, Amanda and Michael, who are out litter picking most days and in all weathers, are worthy award recipients who have really made a difference to the town.

Members of the Ramsgate Litter Pickers volunteer group are also working in partnership with Thanet District Council and Royal Mail to help tackle graffiti in the town. Justine from the council’s Open Spaces team noticed that members of the Litter Pickers group on Facebook regularly post pictures of the bags of litter they collect, and that often graffiti tags can be spotted in the background. She got in touch to suggest that if litter pickers could take a photo of the tagging and label it with its location, she’d check the Facebook page every morning and add the tagged areas to the team’s list for removal, without the volunteers having to go to the trouble to submit a report.

This is a simple but brilliant idea that shows the council working in partnership with the local community – and it’s working really well.

The Litter Pickers also contacted Royal Mail about tagging on postboxes. Legally, no-one but Royal Mail is allowed to touch the boxes, so the council couldn’t remove the tags. But the Litter Pickers were told if they sent through a list of tagged boxes with their locations and box numbers, Royal Mail would remove the tags or repaint the boxes themselves. They sent Royal Mail a list of 19 boxes in need of attention at the beginning of March, and look forward to seeing them improved very soon.

Rise Up Clean Up is running beach cleans at Margate Main Sands at 11am on Sunday 13 April, Sunday 11 May and Sunday 8 June as part of The Great Big Green Week. As the weather warms up and Margate welcomes more visitors to our beaches, they will start weekly cleans on Sundays at 4pm on Margate Main Sands, from the start of July. There have been a lot of new, first time beach cleaners joining recently which is really wonderful, along with many regular volunteers, all who feel strongly about keeping our beaches and ocean clear of litter and reducing single use plastic. For more info, sign up to the newsletter via Rise Up Clean Up Margate or follow them on social media for updates.

Rise Up Clean Up has been selected as a winner of a Thanet Community Champions Award, in recognition of their volunteers’ hard work and the continuing support received from the Margate community. The Thanet Community Champions awards celebrate the work of Thanet’s Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprise (VCSE) organisations and individuals who have improved the quality of life for the community in Thanet.