The 12th annual Big Boston Clean Up has been voted another great success – by organisers, volunteers and local businesses who took part.
The four-day campaign saw teams from all over the borough picking up litter from Boston’s streets.
Here’s just a sample of some of the comments posted on Facebook:
Emma Tunley: Thank you for all you’ve done and William has enjoyed himself so much x
Dawn Gair Douglass: Reuben had so much fun. His little feet hurt him by the end. They all did a fab job.
Lisa Eaglen: Thank you. This is great but those that live in this town shouldn’t be littering in the first place!
Donna Watton: I love this, thank you everyone for all the hard work going into the clean ups!
Mark Barney Walker: I was in Boston today about 9:30am and saw armies of people with hi-viz vests on, black bags and grabbers. Great effort from all and nice to see people caring for the town
Karena Hall: Good day, lovely food provided, very tired legs now
Sue Marsh: Fantastic people giving up their time. Well done x
Coveris, one of the business which joined in posted to their Twitter page: “Over 20 colleagues from our sites in Boston volunteered a total of 46 hours, filling a van with rubbish and collecting another 36 bags of litter on top of this! It was good exercise for the team too – they walked 180,000 steps between them”
Asda, Boston Community Champions, posted: “Our colleagues have been working hard at the #BigBostonCleanUp. Thanks Sam, Pete, Jackie, Sandra, Adam, Tina, Sinead, Ana and Stephen. An Asda Foundation grant provided funding for volunteers’ lunches”
Organiser, Jen Moore received an email from one of the volunteers, Sue Morrison, giving her thanks. Sue said comments from her children on the day, were: ‘That was fun, fun, fun’, ‘Can we do it again next year?’, ‘Why do those naughty people put rubbish on the floor instead of in the bins? I think they were very, very bad people!’
More good news was that volunteer litter pickers reported much less rubbish to collect than in previous years.
When the clean-up began in 2008 more than 10 tonnes of rubbish was lifted from Boston’s streets, verges, open spaces and waterways.
This year, with volunteer numbers similar to 2008, the total had reduced to just 3.7 tonnes, demonstrating that the town is becoming much cleaner.
Boston Borough Council street cleaning staff and the Boston Town Area Committee’s operatives acted as group leaders taking care of volunteers and dealing with any hazardous litter they came across. They were joined by members of the public, some of whom show up every year, other council staff, people from businesses and organisations including Asda, Lincolnshire Co-op, Boston in Bloom, Boston Big Local, Freshtime, Calders and Grandidge, Nationwide Building Society, Inspire Lincs, McDonalds, Boston Woods Trust, Coveris, LHP, Boston Fire Station, Boston Police Cadets, Longhurst & Havelok Homes, North Sea Camp, Thistles Nursery, Flytipping Watch, Burton Corner WI, Centrepoint Outreach, Lincolnshire Community and Voluntary Service (LCVS), Framework, Boston Fire Station, the Environment Agency, North Sea Camp, Black Sluice Internal Drainage Board and Network Rail. We would also like to give a special thank you to Asda Boston, Lincolnshire Co-op and Freshtime who were sponsors providing lunches every day and to Boston Big Local which funded all litter-picking equipment.
With around 95 large bags of plastics collected over the four days artist Laura Mabbutt now has the task of creating her masterpiece sculpture featuring a figure standing on a globe made entirely out of plastic collected during the clean up. The figure will be at least life size but Laura is hoping to make even larger. Laura came up with the idea after finding out that for every human being on the planet the same weight in plastic is manufactured every single year.
The sculpture will be featured at the Lincolnshire Show and will be used to raise awareness of plastic pollution and to encourage people to recycle as much as possible and to reduce their use of plastics.
Clean-up organiser Jen Moore, Boston Borough Council’s environmental supervisor, thanked all who had helped and said it was good that the evidence, despite the perception of some, was that the town is becoming steadily cleaner each year.
She said: “It is great to see so many people at the clean-up event each year. Holding events like this encourages people to work together to create a better environment to live and work in, it also encourages everyone to take more pride in the town, especially when they see the effort the volunteers have made.’
“We are all so grateful for all that the volunteers do to help keep the town clean and tidy; not just at Big Boston Clean Up time but throughout the year. Some faces I recognise from year one. They keep coming back because, despite the fact they are giving up their time picking up litter, there is great camaraderie and they really enjoy these four days.
“Some volunteers asked to keep their equipment and signed up as litter champions so they can go out in their spare time and help keep our town clean. We now have 174 litter champions”.
Cigarette litter is still one of the biggest issues – the council has now purchased two large industrial street vacuum cleaners in order to tackle this problem. The absence of more visible rubbish makes the thousands of cigarette ends show up even more. The council is also offering free portable ‘mini pouches’ for the disposal of cigarette butts. These are available from the council offices in West Street, Boston, Lincs, PE20 8QR.
No Big Boston Clean Up campaign could work without the team in the background who keep everyone supplied with teas, coffees, biscuits and a delicious lunches. They are:-
Fydell House, Zion Methodist Church, Holy Trinity Church, Kayleigh Wagg, Chris Banks, Emma Butler, Aaron Banks, Jade Banks, Imogen Smith, George Bernard and Sharon Warner, Finally a massive thank you to Tracey Banks who not only co-ordinated and helped serve and prepare all the refreshments breaks and lunches but helped organise the event itself.