Smashing our Goals!

On Earth Day, 22nd April 2021, Georgia and Gaby headed over to Eastville Park to meet with the rangers and volunteer to pick up litter across the woodland area.

From 22-29 April, the Wildscreen team are getting out and about with different challenges to help raise funds for our Emerging Talent scheme. From 10 mile runs, to beach cleans we’re pushing ourselves and working to protect our local wildlife.

Georgia and Gaby were expecting to collect 1000 pieces of litter across 3 litter picking sessions but surprised themselves as they almost hit this goal within the first session.

After 2 hours of picking up litter, the team reached 970 pieces! After such a success, they have decided to raise their goal to 5000 pieces – the same number (£5000) that we are aiming to fundraise throughout the week.

As well as spotting herons, ducks, Canadian geese, swans, squirrels and bumblebees, the team unfortunately came across a lot of litter. From fast food packaging, bottle tops, empty cans and bottles to the biggest offender – discarded cigarettes!

Cigarette butts are the most prevalent form of litter in the UK – as smoking-related litter makes up 68% of English littered items. Many people aren’t aware that cigarette butts are actually single-use plastic and contain hundreds of toxic chemicals that are slowly released into the air, land and water when discarded.

The team will be back collecting litter throughout the week to smash our next 5000 target and continue to protect our local wildlife. If you want to support our challenges and help to empower the next generation of natural world storytellers, please donate generously to our Big Give campaign!