Peninsula Litter Pick – bigger & better…

Mountain of rubbish

Following the successful road side litter pick 2012, this year all the villages from across the Bawdsey Peninsula agreed to take part in a co-ordinated litter pick on Saturday 23 March.

Despite the appalling weather, most of the Parish Councils managed to get out before the relentless snow covered everything. Between them all we cleared over 50 sacks of rubbish from the roadside verge, making a mountain of black bags to add to the huge pile of detritus that the SWT group collected earlier in the week from Lower Hollesley Common. Had the snow not fallen I dread to thing just how much more would have been retrieved from the roadsides.

Some of the strange and dangerous items found included: 25 car tyres; loads of part used motor oil containers; broken washing baskets; a headboard; carpet and underlay; a rusty wheelbarrow, and lots more.

This was all made possible thanks to each Parish Council who nominated a lead for their village to do what they could –

This is a ‘pile of rubbish’ sign

Alderton, Bawdsey, Boyton, Butley, Capel St Andrew, Hollesley, Shottisham, Sutton & Sutton Heath, as well as a working party from the Suffolk Wildlife Trust. Plus the generous support of Suffolk Coast & Heaths who kindly provide all the equipment needed to make it easier for communities to just get on and do it, as well as Suffolk Coastal District Council waste services who kindly collected everything we found.

Below are a few more pictures from this years efforts – sadly due to the weather people didn’t hang around long enough for me to get any photos of the real hero’s who turned out despite the weather and make such a positive contribution to our pretty little corner of Suffolk… thank you all – you know who you are (and enjoy your cream egg).

SWT Team collection

Sutton team collection

Alderton team collection

Carpet and recyclables…

Radio Suffolk Campaign

Mountain of rubbish

Tyres, oil & nasty bits

Such odd stuff we found…

What a pile of rubbish

Should anyone else be inspired to do something similar there is a useful online guide on the Ipswich Borough Council website for community litter picks. Radio Suffolk continue to run their successful Don’t be a Tosser campaign and can help you too.

And finally, a couple of feedback comments received – feel free to add your own using the feedback entry below…

“…if I can please ask you to pass on our sincere thanks to all involved in whatever way. We are very grateful for the massive contribution to looking after this area of the AONB, but as always it’s such a shame that this kind of effort and activity is needed at all.”
Lynn Allen – Countryside Officer, Suffolk Coast & Heaths AONB

“Impressive stuff – must be great to get such a tangible action done.”
Simon Amstutz is the Dedham Vale AONB Manager and Planning & Development Officer.

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BCG Update

After a slow start to the year things are starting to pick-up for the community group with an active calendar of events forming….

• Beachwatch, the litter pick along the river, will take place on Saturday 16 March, meeting at the Village Hall at 2.00pm. Contact Keith Lilley
• Peninsula litter pick, Sat 23 March. Most of the villages on the Peninsula have agreed to coordinate a mass roadside litter pick on this weekend to help keep our verges and environment cleaner and smarter for visitors and wildlife to benefit. We hope to improve on last years achievement – see map for details of confirmed pickings. Contact Andrew for details or call 411720.
• Boyton Inn should resume in April, running through the summer to September – Saturdays at 7.30pm at the village hall. Watch this space and Village Voices for further details.
• Birds & Brunch is a new event, planned for Bank Holiday Monday, 6 May. This will involve a guided walk around the marshes, village or forest, looking to see what birds are breeding or passing through, followed by refreshments in the village hall. There will be a small charge for this event with all proceeds going towards the community group running costs. Booking will be necessary with charges at £5 per person for Birds & Brunch. For enquiries or bookings contact Gary Lowe on 01394 411203 or e-mail gary.lowe1957@btinternet.com.
• Apple Day, we hope this year will have a good enough harvest, in anticipation we have provisionally booked the apple press, apple dryer and peelers for Saturday 12 October so hold that date and pray for a mild spring

The community group received a few suggested amendments to the Welcome Pack. A revised version is now available. We want to keep this document up to date and accurate, so suggestions for further changes are always welcome.

For those interested in switching to a green energy provider, please consider using Co-operative Energy. Speak to Andrew on 411720 or e-mail Boyton.co2@btinternet.com for more information. It is possible you and the community group could each make £25 from switching, as well as benefiting from a greener tarrif.

Finally, in our last article, we asked whether there was any interest in setting up a pig project. That did not provoke much reaction but there does seem to be some interest in setting up a Boyton Beekeepers group. Get in touch with Gary, as above, if you want to know more.

For more information, including copies of the Welcome Pack, minutes of meetings and much more of interest, visit the group’s website, as above.

The next meeting will be on Saturday 30 March at Chesterfield Lodge, Boyton, starting at 10.00am and hopefully finishing by noon.

Gary Lowe
February 2013