After organising some monthly group litter picks with Swale Green Party in late 2020 we were really building some momentum and getting lots of volunteers coming along to help clean up many of our local villages and loved areas.
Sadly, the second and third lockdowns put an end to our group picking but the litter problem remained and seemed to be getting worse. In late January I came up with the idea of a scheme to buy in a large quantity of litter picking equipment to loan out to people on a long term basis to enable volunteers to pick in their own time. Through Swale Borough Council's members funds scheme, Cllr Ben A Martin provided us a grant of £800 to purchase 30 pickers, bag hoops and hi-vis vests and Swale Litter Squad was born.
A few weeks later and we have an online map showing areas that have been picked, areas in dire need of attention and the approximate locations of volunteers (with their permission). In mid March we signed up our 100th volunteer and we have loaned out every single piece of the equipment we bought and are now fundraising to buy 30 more sets to loan out to our growing waiting list! Donations can be made at tinyurl.com/littersquad.
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