I'm extremely lucky and live in a beautiful part of the country; north Cornwall. About a mile from my house is a lovely valley to run through and there are a variety of routes I can take, so I can have a different run there every day of the week. The Wildlife Trust call it the Perfect Lost World.
Unfortunately I found out a few weeks ago that it was not perfect. On my run I came across carelessly discarded empty sweet bags and a few plastic bottles. As I ran down towards the sea there were several bits of plastic snagged on thorn bushes. I think the plastic must have blown in from the sea. A little later on I came across a few till receipts, a cheese wrapper and an address label from a parcel. I think this rubbish must have blown in from the nearby village. There had been a few days of strong winds and perhaps some dustbins had blown over, or refuse sacks left for collection had been ripped open by gulls or foxes and their contents carried away on the wind.
I was angry, very angry that my beautiful valley had been sullied by the outside world. Then I remembered the saying 'Don't get angry, get even'. I went home got my camera and a bag and the pictures below tell the rest of the story.
Being an ultra runner I haven't stopped there I've kept on going and launched a campaign, Trail Runners Against Illegal Litter, to persuage runners to pick up litter. I've now got a sponsor, Toetoe socks, to pay for printing and publicity, so as of now the campaign is live. You can even get a pouch belt to put the litter in and some protective gloves. See TRAIL Campaign.
My Perfect Lost World is perfect again.
Runners are doers.
Great idea with the campaign. I can always tell when I am nearing 'civilisation' at the end of the trails by the increased amount of rubbish and also by the increased amount of dog excrement. Also noticing more evidence of people bagging it but then hanging it on branches etc! That's even worse - how long do people think these bags take to degrade!
I'm all for picking up rubbish, often do whilst out running over our beloved East Sussex Downs above Eastbourne and through Friston Forest, lazy recycling collection and ignorant people dropping litter is terrible, here is a pic of a walk were we picked up a full bag of rubbish and a large plastic container in just one hour...
[img]www.calamitycreations.co.uk/.../rubbishcollection.jpg[/img]
Great article - and what a good feeling to make a difference! Litter is a real bugbear of mine: I often pick up bits while out dogwalking. I don't understand how people (in town) can take the trouble to STEP ROUND litter, instead of picking it up! Athough I don't normally stop when I'm runnin, recently my running group swerved around a broken umbrella lying on the ground, close to a litter bin, and I did break my stride and pop it in. If everyone did that to litter that is litter in their path, it'd be altogether nicer.