Hello Burnham-On-Sea!
- isobelfrowde
- Mar 26, 2023
- 4 min read
Hello Burnham-On-Sea!
After last weeks pick in Watchet I thought I’d head to the coast again as it had been nice to see the sea. I sat down with Dad and we decided to go for Burnham-On-Sea. It wasn’t really the nicest day for a pick, it was cold, windy and grey out – but somehow we have also managed to get sunburnt faces?! Anyway – overall it was not very nice 😬.
I have done 30 litter picks so far (including today) covering over 147 km and picking up over 244kg of rubbish. I write a report after each pick and you can find all of my reports on my facebook page which is here:
If you would like to sponsor me and are able to then you can do so here:
And if you’d like to see where we have been in map form you can find all our picks here:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1A3jxWm-PdRQat33PxCMhiskMpu3BFGk&usp=sharing
Before we went out, we went to collect a rucksack from a lady whose daughter had been to Tanzania a while ago, and saw our posts and wondered if we might need it! This was very kind of her – Thank You!
We parked the car near the Burnham Tesco and decided to head to the Esplanade and then come back- we parked in a small layby and found litter as soon as we stepped out. We first of all headed away from our destination – this was because we had seen a discarded coffee cup by the pub so we thought we would get that first. We then turned and headed for the sea.
At first we didn’t find too much – a few little things – but once we reached the school it started to pick up. There were a few things inside the fence of the school that we got. And then quite a few items in the hedge of Burnham Medical Centre. Just past here, we met a man who told us we shouldn’t be picking because it would encourage people to drop it more! We struggled to see the logic here – although I suppose if it’s always picked up then people might come to expect it to be picked up - but I think it is good to be keeping the place clean anyway, picking it shouldn't make people drop more.
As we came to the Esso Garage roundabout we came to a drain. There was a broken paper bag that was wet, and blocking half the drain. There was also loads of bits of tiny broken glass next to the drain. This could be quite dangerous for cyclists as it could cause a puncture. Just a bit further on, we found that someone had dumped glass bottles and cans in someone's hedge in their front garden! We sometimes get this on our front wall and it’s so annoying!
Some of the later drains we came to reminded us of the drains in Derry – we were a bit concerned that Pennywise the clown was going to entice us with a piece of juicy litter and then drag us away! (If you haven’t watched IT then you might not get this!)
We headed through a church yard towards the esplanade. There was a nice formal garden with some benches and a pond with a statue (and some litter). The esplanade itself was quite clean however there were a few wrappers and cigarettes around the benches up there, and we found quite a lot of dog poo again this week. Nothing like as much as in Wellington but more than usual. We walked nearly as far as the holiday park; our original plan had been to turn back the same way we had come, on the other side of the road, but as there hadn’t been much litter we decided to take a different route and cut back through some residential areas.
At first there wasn't too much, and it was quite a clean area apart from a bit of dog poo, but as we got closer to the end, there was a hedge along Old Station Road that was awful. It was completely filled with lots of rubbish like cans, and crisp wrappers etc. We couldn’t reach all of it but we got what we could.
Whilst walking along here, two people talked to us, one asking if we were part of the council, as it was their job and suggesting we should be leaving the litter for them, but we thought that if everyone did a little bit, then the area would be clean, and the second was a nice lady who congratulated us ☺. She said a lot of the rubbish gets washed down to Hunstpill and gathers there.
We then went down a little path, where we found a few bottle lids, and then turned onto our last road heading back to our start. This one seemed to last forever! Everytime we checked how much further it was it was as if we had barely moved. At one time Dad said 'i don't want to look at my phone to still see 0.4 miles (this was a long way with our 4 heavy bags 😁) and it turned out to be exactly 0.4 miles 😂
After that long road, we got back to the car, we had covered 5.4km in 2 hours and 40 minutes picking up 7.36kg of recycling and 7.22 kg of rubbish. The bags were really heavy this week – we have decided we should probably start taking our trolley along again.
As we drove home we stopped to get a photo near the Burnham-On-Sea sign – we had to park quite a way from it and walk back to it. This was a really well kept sign with a lovely flower bed at its foot – it was clearly looked after – it was just such a shame whilst walking along the road that we saw so much litter gathered in the verges.
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