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Reclaiming the riverside

- 29-Apr-2005
Last Friday's Earth Day activities in Brentford were less messing about on the river and more cleaning up the mess strewn about on the river - all seven and a half tonnes of it.

Over 250 volunteers, including local residents, school children, youth groups and staff from clothing giant Timberland, turned up to help with the massive spring clean. Organised by charity Thames 21 and funded by Timberland, the event celebrated the 35th Earth Day, which sees environmental activities taking place across the globe.

Each clean-up starts with an obligatory health and safety talk, as the river can be a pretty dangerous place. Advice is given out on what to do if you cut yourself while cleaning; the river water is untreated and can harbour germs that cause illnesses such as Weil's disease. There is also the risk of picking up contaminated needles, which is why thick gloves and litter-picking devices are handed out to volunteers. The rubbish found in the water can be a hazard, but so can the river itself. Volunteers are reminded to check the progress of the tide and told how to pull their boots out of the mud while calling for help should they get stuck.

Following the safety lecture, the gathered crowd split into seven groups and went to work on different sections of the river, stretching from Waterman's Park to the eastern area around Kew Bridge. The aim was to collect up as much rubbish as possible, leaving the river cleansed.

Rex Graham, from Timberland, said the company had become involved with Earth Day because it has a particularly strong ethos about the environment. "We believe that its absolutely critical to support the community, to put back what we are taking out. We have be careful of the footprint that we leave on the world. Actions speak louder than words so we put our principles into action," Rex said.

Consequently, Timberland staff complete 40 hours of paid voluntary work a year. Rex added: "We make a valuable donation of our time. 30,000 hours have been donated across the world by Timberland on Earth Day. We are pulling our boots on and making a difference."

Down on the foreshore the volunteers were getting stuck in and, quite literally, getting their hands dirty. I managed to deposit several metal pipes into the skips, as well as a tin opener, a jar of spaghetti sauce, a saucepan (had someone's dinner just been thrown away?) and, most interestingly of all, a whole toilet. Disappointingly there was no treasure, bones or discarded weapons. A Thames 21 worker said that the preferred way of disposing of a gun was to wrap it in an old sock - the week before two undetonated bombs and an automatic gun were found in a clean-up near Hammersmith Bridge.

However, the amount of discarded litter, glass bottles, bicycles, shopping trolleys and rotting boats is an equally serious matter as it has a huge impact on the aesthetics, amenity and ecology of the river.

Thames 21 worker Leigh said the clean-ups are a wake-up call for some: "It makes people think about the impact they have on the earth, the footprint' that Timberland refers to. People are astonished by what they have to throw in the skips - particularly when they are having to pick up sanitary towels and condoms with their litter-pickers. That's why it's important that we get the message across that with those types of waste you bag it and bin it - don't throw it down the toilet."

Ed Terlford, Thames 21's river programmes officer, added: "Removing litter, especially industrial litter which can remain stuck in the mud for years, improves and maintains our water spaces and it's a fantastic way of showing people how they can make a difference to their local environment."

Anne Wiltshire, a boat owner on the Grand Union Canal, agreed with this sentiment: "I use the river quite a lot and I see so much rubbish that has been dumped in it. As I live here it's my duty to tidy it up."

The benefits of the clean-up on the environment are obvious but the activity has hidden gains for those involved too. Charlotte Dickenson, from the Pupil Referral Service unit based in Isleworth, had four students involved in the clean-up. She said: "For them to come and give something to the community is remarkable. They had to be at school for 8am so it has been a long day for them. To see them working in a predominantly adult environment, when they have previously had problems dealing with adults, is just great."

The four boys worked extremely hard, but also found time to catch a rather large eel that was lurking in an old tyre. After being put in a bucket and shown to the group the monster was released back in the water.

Dorothy Boland, from Strand on the Green, was involved in the October clean up. She had also been searching for signs of local wildlife. "We've all been looking for the two-lipped door snail and the German hairy snail snails so that we can put a stop to the developers," she explained, referring to the proposed scheme on the Scottish Widow site at Kew Bridge.

The dedicated workers had begun their toil at 9am and were so enthused they had collected enough debris and detritus to fill all the skips provided within a matter of hours, returning to the safety of the river banks well before the tide came in. After a brief lunch break they set back to work clearing graffiti, painting railings and creating habitats for wildlife in the upper Thames's last surviving tidal meadow at Syon Park.

By the end of the day Brentford was left a cleaner place and the volunteers were left with a great feeling of satisfaction, as well as any treasures they had managed to pull from the mud.

"My muscles are still aching," said Anne Wiltshire the next day, "but what a great day I had. Here's to the next time!"

Source: Sally Henfield, Brentford Chiswick & Isleworth Times

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