For the last couple of years, it has been our absolute pleasure to run litter picks with our local primary school once a term.
Being based by the sea in Perranporth we are all too aware of the problems of plastic pollution and beach cleans are regularly held in our area, but we wanted to do something that made the connection between actions on the beach and the actions we take on our streets, highlighting the impact of litter in our community and hopefully inspiring the children to grow up to be more conscious of not littering themselves.
Tuesday saw our first litter pick of the new school year and there was a brilliant turn out, with over 50 bags of litter collected by the primary school children and sorted between a regular waste bin and a recycling bin.
The children were engaged, knowledgable, enthusiastic and proud, and we couldn't be prouder of them and of the community for coming together to take action on litter.
Suez have been fantastic supporters of the litter pick campaign, providing bins for the school to use for the collection and also very generously providing prizes for the class which collects the most litter, introducing a fun, competition element!
If you feel inspired to set up your own street litter pick with your local primary school and get the children engaged in clearing litter and not just walking past then we have a blog post which breaks down the steps we took to set up the litter pick in the first place - do let us know if you set one up too. In one morning, a single primary school cleared 50 bags of litter from the streets, imagine that across the country!
You should also check out 2minutestreetclean for more litter picking inspiration away from the beach.