HELPING TO CLEAN UP OUR COAST AND COUNTRYSIDE
This year, I was fortunate to volunteer at the London Marathon on behalf of Keep Britain Tidy to help with the sustainability.
Normally, the event takes place in April but due to Covid-19 restrictions last year, there would not have been time to organise it for the Spring so it was postponed until Sunday 2nd October 2022. However, bookings are now open for the 2023 event which returns in April. I travelled up to Essex on the Saturday evening ready to get the tube early on Sunday morning as I had to be on The Mall by 8:30am. There were lots of runners on the tube making their way to the start line at Greenwich with the elite wheelchair men's and women's races commencing at 8:50 followed by the elite women's race starting 10 minutes later with the elite men's race and mass event at 9:40. After checking in at the volunteer registration point, as team leader, I was given our kit for the day and a packed lunch. We had our briefing before going over to Horse Guards Parade which would be the 'Finish Area' where runners would meet up with their family, friends and their chosen charities. The first job was to set up 'Waste Stations' using barriers and refuse bins where recyclables would be separated from general waste. Unfortunately, people had already used the bins so we had to empty them all and start again. Once everything was ready, families were arriving and the helicopters overhead signalled that the first entrants were on their way. The winning runner of this year's London Marathon was Amos Kipruto of Kenya with a time of 2:04:39. First on the Women's race was Yalemzerf Yehualaw of Ethiopia in 2:17:26. For the Wheelchair Men's race, Marcel Hug of Switzerland crossed the finish line in 1:24:40 and Catherine Debrunner of Switzerland winning the Wheelchair Women's race in 1:38:24. Although heavy rain was forecast, the sun was out and it became quite warm on the sheltered square but a cool breeze made it perfect conditions for the runners. By midday, Horse Guards Parade was filling up fast and we were getting busy supervising people with their rubbish. It became apparent that too many people have still not got their head around recycling with many using the wrong bin which meant we had to retrieve and correct it while others stopped and looked a bit confused when they saw different bins. Sadly, it seemed to be the minority that found it easy! Anyway, it all kept us busy for the rest of the day with a couple of us going off with litter pickers to start collecting the plastic water bottles, empty Prosecco bottles, foil blankets etc. which were starting to litter the area. We kept going until just after 6pm when the bins were full and locked up ready for collection later in the night. I walked down Whitehall to Parliament Square and the Embankment to watch the last entrants struggling to finish before the 'Sweep Bus' came along to collect those who wouldn't finish before the closing time of 7:30pm. Hopefully, I'll return on Sunday 23rd April 2023 where we'll do it all again! You might be interested to know that the 3 dumpy bags of beach plastics I collected at the start of the year went towards 4 tons of beach plastics which were recycled and used for the mile markers (see above photo) along the route.
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AuthorBorn in West Somerset, I have always been proud of where I live and want everyone else to enjoy it too! Archives
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