Essex Wildlife Trust celebrate successful Spring Pickers scheme

The Essex Wildlife Trust launched its Spring Pickers scheme in March and almost 500 people picked up a minimum of 23,850 pieces of litter from March 9 to 18.

Organisations like Halstead Library, and Sible Hedingham Library helped the environmentally friendly mission by donating free litter picking equipment to those taking part.

The aim of Spring Pickers was to pick up five pieces of rubbish every day for the ten day period, ensuring the country is cleaned-up before spring arrived.

Good work - members of Essex Wildlife Trust taking part in the Spring Pickers scheme (Image: Essex Wildlife Trust)

Essex Wildlife Trust, a conservation charity dedicated to protecting wildlife, was blown away by the 447 participants that took part after it only expected 100 people to sign-up.

According to the trust, litter and plastic pollution has a “far-reaching” impact on wildlife as it can get entangled in little and hurt themselves on sharp discarded items or potentially ingest the hazardous materials.

Many of the litter pickers included Essex residents, schools, nurseries, businesses, children’s activity groups, and more.

Chappel Church of England Primary School, in Colchester, also took part in the campaign.

Rubbish - some of the litter collected on one of the campaign days (Image: Essex Wildlife Trust)

Gemma Cosson, the campaigns assistant for Essex Wildlife Trust is delighted with how the event has gone.

She said: “Thanks to Spring Pickers, our wildlife will be sharing its home with almost 24,000 less pieces of litter.

“We have been overwhelmed with the efforts made to clean up our county, with many individuals and groups going above and beyond the five pieces a day target.

“Litter can have detrimental impacts across all species and habitats, so it’s fantastic to see people taking action against such a huge environmental issue.

“Due to the vast enthusiasm for Spring Pickers, we look forward to running the campaign again next year.”

Amazing - the litter collected by the Maldon & Dengie litter picking team (Image: Essex Wildlife Trust)

The South East Essex Ramblers took part in the campaign.

They said: “All members were quite enthusiastic about this campaign.

All sorts of things were found including bubble wrap, cans and plastic.

“On all four walks conducted for Spring Pickers, the group did their best, although some only scratched the surface.

“On one walk, the group reported seeing school children picking up litter as well, so the campaign was spreading.”