Join us! Let’s Clean for The Queen - Saturday 5th March at 10.00am
Ashendon Parish Council
16 February 2016 - Parish Council News
Clean for the Queen has launched a call for volunteers to join the UK’s largest litter pick aiming to inspire one million people to help during a special clean up weekend on March 4th, 5th or 6th. All of the country’s litter charities have come together in support of this campaign to attack the blight of litter together with a growing range of companies, land managers and associations.
Supporting the clean-up, Ashendon Parish Council and parishioners will be taking part on Saturday 5th March at 10.00am with a litter pick.
If you’d like to, you may let Venetia (Clerk) know that you intend to participate; please email ashendonpc@gmail.com. Otherwise just turn up at the car park in the Playing Field. Please wear a ‘hi-viz’ jacket if you have one and bring work gloves. Children are welcome if accompanied by an adult and we have a number of jackets to fit them and we also have some litter pickers.
Special edition “Clean for the Queen” litter bags will be available.
About Keep Britain Tidy
- About 2.25 million pieces of litter are dropped on the streets of the UK every day. Thirty million tons of rubbish are collected from England’s streets each year. That’s enough to fill Wembley Stadium four times over and costs over a billion pound to clean up.
- The Highways Agency clears about 180,000 sacks of litter from motorways and A roads alone. There could be 46,000 pieces of plastic floating in every square mile of the ocean. About 80% of that comes from the land. Plastic takes at least 450 years to break down in seawater.
- In 2013/14, local authorities dealt with 852,000 fly-tipping incidents in England and Wales. These cost roughly £45 million to clear up. The RSPCA receives 7,000 calls a year about animals injured by litter.
- In 2013, 8.3 billion single-use plastic bags were handed out in the UK. The amount of litter on UK beaches has almost doubled over the past 15 years.
- An RSPB study found that 95% of fulmars washed up dead on the North Sea coast had ingested plastic
- How long does it take to biodegrade?
- Paper bag up to one month
- Orange peel up to two year
- Banana skin up to two years
- Plastic bag up to 10–20 years
- Cigarette butts up to 12 years
- Plastic bottle up to 450 years
- Glass bottles and chewing gum are not biodegradable
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How much does litter cost?
- It costs taxpayers almost £1 billion every year to clean up litter from our streets
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The cost of cleaning up chewing gum from a town centre is up to £60,000
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Fly-tipping costs Network Rail more than £2.3 million each year
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Clearing litter costs Dartmoor National Park £20,000 a year
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According to a 2014 Keep Britain Tidy report, if we recycled 50% of items littered in England, it would have an economic value of at least £14.8 million
Contact Information
Parish Clerk
Find Ashendon Parish Council
Village Hall, Main Street, Ashendon, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, HP18 0HB