Police Community Day – Caia Park, Wrexham

Last Saturday (26^th May) I took part in the annual North Wales Police Community Day in Caia Park, Wrexham – Police Community Days offer a great opportunity to meet up with various groups in the area and hopefully gain support for future Keep Wales Tidy environmental work within the local community – Keep Wales Tidy has over recent years worked closely with residents in Caia Park on a whole range of environmental work from river cleans and litter picks to waste amnesties and bio diversity improvement work.

Some great environmental work planned by Keep Wales Tidy over the next few weeks with various groups across Wrexham – Keep checking this post for updates!

Acton Environmental Action Day

Environmental Action Days are a great way for the whole community to get involved in a concerted effort to clear streets of litter, remove graffiti and clear unwanted vegetation.

They offer the opportunity for the whole community to act as one and tackle environmental issues they deem important locally. Keep Wales Tidy Projects Officers from right across Wales work in partnership with communities, Police and County Councils on environmental action days throughout the year so if you are interested in taking part why not give it a go!

I recently helped out with an Acton Environmental Day in Wrexham - We managed to collect 15 bags of litter over a few hours!!

Invasive Weeds on the River Dee

Volunteers from Bryn y Pys Angling Association have begun a programme to control and eventually eradicate Japanese Knotweed and Himalayan Balsam from a four mile stretch of the lower Dee between Bangor on Dee and Erbistock (Overton Bridge) – The club has received funding from Keep Wales Tidy to train a volunteer in the use of herbicide spraying and to purchase herbicide which will hopefully allow the club to reclaim areas of the Dee that have in recent years become off limits due to the presence of both species of invasive weed – If not tackled both  plants will decimate local bio diversity, curb access and contribute to river bank erosion. Both of these plants are non native and are fast becoming an issue for many in our countryside and towns – The photo show volunteers from Bryn y Pys about to begin strimming Himalayan Balsam near Overton Bridge 

The work will continue throughout the summer supplemented with a programme of herbicide spraying and Keep Wales Tidy will be working closely with the club throughout this year. A major “balsam pull” will take place on the 3^rd and 4^th of July (last year we had over 40 volunteers taking part!). If you would like to take part please phone Shane Hughes, Keep Wales Tidy on 07766 007635 or e-mail shane.hughes@keepwalestidy.org

Acrefair Culvert Clearance

Last Friday I was busy with volunteers from Maelor Angling Association and Cefn Mawr Community Council clearing a blocked culvert in Acrefair – What must have been several tonnes of debris, vegetation and litter had collected over the years and were blocking the channel and could have caused local flooding – Full marks to Maelor Angling Association for devising a winch system to lift the debris from the culvert safely!

After several hours we managed to clear a channel through the debris allowing the water to flow more freely – More work is required however to fully clear the channel and we hope to complete the work later this month

The ‘Wales Coast Path Clean Up’

In preparation for the launch of the Wales Coast Path on 5 May 2012, Keep Wales Tidy organised events to clean as much of the path as possible of any unwanted litter whilst at the same time showcasing the fantastic Welsh coastline

The ‘Wales Coast Path Clean Up’ took place over the weekend of 27–29 April 2012 and Keep Wales Tidy, along with local community groups, organised events along the whole length of the 870 mile footpath. As Wrexham is a landlocked county I had to do a bit of travelling to take part therefore I travelled to Porth Neigwl /Hell’s Mouth on the amazing Lleyn Peninsula to help with a beach clean organised by Lee Oliver who is the Keep Wales Tidy Project Officer for Gwynedd.

Over the space of 4 hours 20 volunteers collected an amazing 2 tonnes of litter 95% of which was composed of plastic from the four corners of the globe. Many of the volunteers present were quick to point out that the next high tide or storm will quickly replenish the amount of litter on the beach at Porth Neigwl /Hell’s Mouth in preparation for the next beach clean! Perhaps one day communities across the globe (as this is without doubt a worldwide issue) will come to realise that we can’t keep treating the oceans as a dumping ground, a case of out of site out of mind