Ilminster to Chard Cycle Path + a little

It’s been a few weeks since I managed to go out on a litter pick – horse riding, my sisters cricket and a number of other things have got in the way of Dad and I managing to get out.

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One of the hardest things is deciding where to go - we wanted to take the dogs with us today so wanted something off road and we also wanted to spread our wings a little a get away from Taunton. We ended up parking at a Surgery in Ilminster and doing a loop of sorts around the back of the sugery through some fields and then along the Ilminster to Chard cycle path. We were going to add a loop on the far end but the field we were going to go through had lots of sheep in it which would have meant keeping Bruce and Bean on the lead – and they were happier just running around and sniffing along the pathway.

It was a bit of a weird walk – the weather was grey and windy but still quite warm. There was also not a huge amount of litter for most of it. To start with what we found most of was tissues, wipes and small plastic bags. There was a lot of dog poo along the path – far too much for us to pick it all up oddly enough some of it was white which Dad says you rarely see these days – I persuaded him not to take any photos of it. That would have been too much information! We found 1 trainer and a hat together just off the path never really sure how you lose 1 shoe.

When we got to the far end of the path we found a bit more of the usual – plastic bottles (some filled with wee) forks – some glass bottles.

We also found some glass bottles that had been discarded into the long grass – when the grass was then cut the glass bottles have been shattered where they lay which meant that the length of the bottle was exposed broken glass – not ideal if a dog were to walk across it.

We do find it useful to retrace a route in the opposite direction – it just changes your view and sometimes you see things that you didn’t see before – just because of the change of direction.

Bruce and Bean found a nice river to have a swim in.

Quite near the end of the walk we noticed a discarded Christmas Tree chucked into the hedge as we investigated further we saw that underneath it was a load of bottles and other rubbish. I think we probably found as much stuff there as we had found on the rest of our walk so far - certainly in terms of weight it was significant.

As we exited the cycle path and then back onto the road back to our car near the surgery we found a lot more of the usual rubbish - sweet wrappers, drinks bottles etc. One thing we didn’t find today - and a first for our litter picks was no McDonalds. Although Dad did see a McDonalds cup as we drove home!

We walked 6.81KM (plus a bit more which Strava didn’t record!)

We were out for about 2Hrs 15 mins.

We found

3.44 KG of rubbish

1.45 kg of plastic/tin

2.95 kg of glass