It's a new PB!

As we had a busy family weekend and couldn’t go on the weekend, we decided to do our litter pick after school on monday.

Although it was only a short one, we got the most weight on a pick so far! The total was about 9.2kg even though we only walked about 1k – and that was in 500m out and 500m back.

Dad is training for the Yeovil half marathon and one of his routes takes him out towards the Allerford Inn; just over the level crossing and round the corner is a small stream and he has noticed that there is a lot of rubbish in there and all along the road up to the Norton junction – so that was where we headed.

There was so much rubbish and whilst it was disappointing to see it did mean we were able to make quite a difference – it really was filthy - so many glass bottles and discarded McDonalds wrappers, Costa cups, plastic drinks bottles. There was also a rusty tin of paint thinner – the bottom of which had rusted and started to leak – I guess some people just throw stuff out as they drive along. It ruins what could be a pretty lane and stream.

Unfortunately, we were not able to pick up all the litter as it didn’t fit in our bag! It was also getting a bit dark, so we didn’t want to stay out too late as the lanes would start to get dangerous

I did realise that we had made a few mistakes.

• I should have bought a fishing net to get the things a long way from the bank we were on – we had to double up the litter pickers to reach some of the litter.

• Dad should have worn trousers so he didn’t get stung knees and ankles when stretching for the rubbish.

• We should have brought more bags.

We think we will go back here and do this again as we didn’t make it all the way along the stream and Dad says there is also a lot of litter along the side of the road all the way up to the Norton junction and then along into Norton.

As ever - if you want to sponsor me you can do so here: https://gofund.me/78d66343

You can also follow me on facebook if you'd like to be notified when I do something littery! My page is here: Somerset Litter Picker | Facebook

We left the traffic cone near one of the broken warning reflective posts - so although we cleaned it out of the river we didn't include it in our weight count - maybe next time!