How to enjoy another rubbish day
A morning with the rubbish picking volunteers of the Lower Regents Coalition was disgusting - but it certainly cleaned up the canal
I’m back at my SUP beginnings, the Milk Float near Hackney Wick moored in Queen Elizabeth Park where the London Olympics were held. Eight years ago (in 2016) I paid £25 to litter pick from a Moo Canoes paddleboard with Kiko and then get rewarded with a piece of cake.
Eight years on, litter picking is usually for free…
Now it’s the last weekend in January 2024 and I’m ready to tackle litter on the waterways again. It feels virtuouspicking up rubbish randomly on my paddles - and is the right thing to do for wildlife - but it doesn’t dent the rubbish mountain or tackle the rubbish problem.
That’s why I went to meet Dave Bedford from the Lower Regents Coalition as he’s got loads of experience getting litter out of the Lea Navigation, Regent’s Canal and around Limehouse. I’m hoping my rubbish day out with his volunteers will help me improve the way we clean up City Road Basin and the stretch of Regent's Canal between City Road Lock and Sturt’s Lock.
This group is so well organised. We’re greeted warmly by Dave and one of the many long-term volunteers, Dan, then offered fancy tea or coffee and a safe place to put our bags on the Moo Canoes’ Milk Float cafe by Carl.
After we sign waivers, I’m given waterproof gloves and yellow over-trousers. There’s a couple of safety briefings which cover cuts, avoiding Weils’s Disease, and tips about what can be picked up. Anything that’s been living and is now dead stays in the water. We should leave any needles in the water too as it costs money to dispose of sharps. Most importantly never disturb nests (even if they have plastic and rubbish in them) or wildlife.
I’m then paired with Christian who takes over the stern canoe position (ideal for the person with the most canoe skill, and that’s definitely not me) and with our rubbish sacks carefully opened up by a hoop and litter pickers (which we’ve been told will float if we drop them) we head off to the Hertford Union Canal junction. All along the non towpath side is floating rubbish. There are panty pads, one condom wrapper, bits of plastic, loads of plastic bottle tops, discarded plastic packaging corners that must have been zipped away by the wind, an old shoe, bits of string, plastic ties, styrofoam, plastic bags, an old tarp, a brittle plastic storage box and its broken lid, ice cream wrappers, crisp wrappers, chocolate bar wrappers, a discarded bag of stinking rubbish in a white plastic bag and a football.
Christian is a great companion - full of good advice and clear about his position with plastic. He does not like it.
Wherever he goes he’ll pick plastic up - even on holiday. At restaurants he asks for water from the tap or a glass bottle. In shops he doesn’t just refuse plastic bags he talks to the shopkeeper and shoppers about how this is bad for the environment when you could just use a material shopping bag. He’s litter picked loads of times with Lower Regent’s Coalition and I get the feeling would like to go out more often than his work schedule allows.
We also discuss planetary limits; the impossibility of throwing something away given that there is no “away”; how the River Rhone got cleaned up in Germany in the 1970s; improving education about Earth limits and plastic for kids and parents; potential plastic bans and whether Coca-Cola can be sued for the rubbish its products generate.
Our chat sounds very worthy, but actually picking up runaway canal rubbish with the litter picker pincers is fun - it’s both competitive and surprisingly tranquil. We also spot the first violets of the year.
Even the yuck, yuck, yuck is funny. Except when it’s a dead cat.
After two hours our rubbish bags are bulging, and there are objects all round the canoe which are too big for the sacks. The Lower Regents Coalition team then take the bags to a collection point agreed with Tower Hamlets council. About 25 volunteers have collected 50 bags of rubbish, Dave reckons that’s about 420kg of rubbish.
VERDICT: There shouldn’t be so much rubbish in the canal, but… litter picking makes for a fun rubbish day. Try it!
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