On Saturday 5th January there was a New Year Litter Pick round the perimeter of Tesco organised by Helen Flynn‎ of AbiBinit – Abingdon’s Community Litter Picking Group. She is seen here with Lynne Ford, who brought her truck to help, and some of the bagged up litter.

Helen has put on Facebook that there will be another litter pick on Saturday, 16th February 2019 from 10:00-12:00 starting at Rye Farm Carpark.

I cycled to Frilford at the weekend and was amazed just how much litter there was from the Marcham Road A34 Interchange to the junction with the A338 – Wantage Road. The hedges and undergrowth had been cutback and all the rubbish had been revealed. These litter picks are making us more aware of the problem.

Surfers Against Sewage have an annual Autumn Beach Clean, which this year includes rivers for the first time. They say ‘We want to tackle the problem of pollution further upstream and highlight the direct link between all UK towns, villages and cities and the ocean around us. The scale of this clean – the biggest across the UK – will provide us with vital data to inform the Government’s decisions on a new deposit return scheme. We will be able to specifically show the range of bottles and cans which end up polluting our waterways, and which need to be included in a new deposit return scheme‘.

The River & River Bank Clean up in Abingdon is a local joint initiative between Abingdon Cuts Plastic, AbiBinit, and Kingfisher Canoe Club.

I joined Helen on a litter pick near Reynolds Way this morning.

Some people stopped to talk about litter. “You have a thankless job there,” one lady told me. “People just throw their empty takeaway out of the car window and don’t take it home.”

There was a lot of litter thrown into the hedge next to the Open 7 Days Supermarket. Helen has already arranged for a couple of  new bins to be put in useful places. Removing this hedge and replacing it with some wisteria and a bin would also help.

There were other litter hot spots – areas down small lanes, and round corners where empty beer and cider bottles and cans still hung around after the drinkers had gone.

The Next AbiBinit! Litter Picking Initiative is Saturday 29th September. There is also a big Spring Clean all round Abingdon in the Spring.

There is a page on the Friends of Abingdon web site for the AbiBinit! Litter Picking Initiative. They will help organise group litter picks, and have one on Saturday 25th August. The meeting point is at Reynolds Way at 10am.

Here in the town centre you are normally never further than thirty paces from the nearest litter bin. But there are still some people who do not find them, particularly when it comes to coffee containers and styrofoam food containers.

Not all litter bins have the word LITTER on them. Some of them have a picture of a person dropping litter into a bin.

Others have no LITTER word or picture. (Extra points for spying one of these.)