Thames Big Plastic Clean-up Day finally arrives

I had two fears whilst organising this, that a) not enough would turn up on the day and b) there would not be enough plastic to collect, ie. it had all mysteriously floated away on a high tide overnight.

I need not have worried because the logistics in both cases were literally overwhelming. 80 people assembled in the car at the appointed hour and there was plastic aplenty and more.

I apologise for the slightly chaotic semi-briefing in the car-park, due to the numbers and late-comers, so we adjourned out on plot, by which time volunteers were understandably just itching to 'get at it'.

Teams went out of the window, data collection wasn’t going to happen, we all wanted to get that disgusting, huge amount of plastic off the foreshore into bags and into the skip for recycling and that is what we did, brilliant and thanks to everyone for their effort getting over the sea-wall which was a challenge for quite a few, but you did it and you can be really proud of yourselves for removing that huge amount from the river.

One last favour, for which I would be really grateful, if you could email me the top three plastic items you collected, I can then collate them and feed them back to the interested parties, PLA, BBC, RSPB, Guardians of the deep, etc

Once again my heartfelt thanks to a terrific bunch of people who came together on a cold and blustery marsh, miles from anywhere to demonstrate, we do care about the environment and are committed to ridding the world of single-use plastic.

So a big thank you to everyone and a thank you to Norse, Medway Council, Port of London Authority, Natural England, Guardians of the Deep, Pinden and last but not least the RSPB, all of whom played their part in supplying equipment etc and making it happen.