Hi everyone my name is Mya and I am a volunteer with Salford CVS and an Environmental Community Champion. Although I am quite new to this, being a community champion is giving me an opportunity to discuss and look at ways that we as a community can become more aware of the impact we have on our environment. We are also looking at ways of being more self-sufficient which will therefore enable us to reduce our carbon footprint. By raising awareness of the small things we can do it will actually reduce how we impact our environment in the long term which is really important. I think everyone is aware of the impact we as human beings have had on our planet. We have seen this in the media constantly especially over the last decade, but now I feel it is time for us to take action. We need to start doing something to stop us destroying our planet further and even repair some of the damage we have done.
A few weeks back I got an email from Salford CVS with the chance of going ‘litter fishing’ with the Mersey River Trust for the Love Your River project they have going on. I literally jumped to go on to this especially as litter is something we can all dispose of correctly without too much of an effort put into it. I met with Michael and his team at the Salford water centre and we went on the Hubbub recycled plastic litter boat at the Salford Quays.
This amazing project was launched to highlight the issues caused by plastic litter in our rivers, and it is not an experience to be missed. This opportunity gave me the insight on how discarding an empty packet of crisps or a bottle of pop and how it ends up in the river.
Firstly, I must say the smell was absolutely horrid I don’t have the words to describe it. I was so saddened that people had actually dumped sofas, fridges and even a door which I have been told happens frequently. Of course let’s not forget empty packets of crisps and chocolates and bottles of alcohol were everywhere, we were also told plastic bags were common but as they fill up with water they lay onto the river bed. It was slightly upsetting seeing some beautiful swans a few meters away with a sea of rubbish flowing by.
Although it was eye opening we had to put some hard work in and use hand held rubbish pickers to bring the rubbish on to the boat. The amount of plastic installation from electrical items with the metal taken out we pulled from the river was countless. In just over two hours we managed to fill about 10 bins of rubbish which amounted to 30 bags of rubbish and literally millions of plastic beads from the water were taken out.
On leaving the boat, although tired and disappointed at the amount of litter left behind I was glad it hadn’t rained on me. I was amazed and pretty impressed with myself and the other helpers with the amount of litter we had picked up.
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