Cleanup

The traveller encampment left this week. They left behind mountains of refuse. Some, as you can see in this photo, was garden waste. You have to pay to dump it in the proper council recycling centres. But you don’t have to pay to dump it all over public land. I suspect cash-in-hand jobs and no questions asked. Much worse was the mountains of inorganic waste. Plastic bottles, cans, glass bottles, empty food containers, oil drums, a baby bath… we filled two skips. And then at the very pinnacle of yuk was the crap - literally - lobbed into the bushes. Dirty nappies and worse.

Today I was one of a group of volunteers who cleared most of it away. I think about 30 people turned up. We ran out of time to shift all the mountains of garden waste. A local gardening company volunteered to help and their crew and vans helped shift it up to the road where the council will take it and dispose of it properly. Bloody hard work.

I am a ‘live and let live’ kinda guy. But turning a much-loved public space into a tip gets my goat.