Lager Can Helping Clear Up Acton

Borough wide volunteer group is reaching parts others can't

Jaqueline Davis at the A40 between Savoy Circus and the top of Glendun Rd.

One of the success stories of the last difficult year is the growth of the volunteer rubbish picking group LAGER Can and Acton now has it's own increasing membership.

Jaqueline Davis and others meet at 1.30pm every Saturday outside Strawberry Local, Friars Place Lane, W3.They spend 60-90 minutes on a socially distanced litter pick around the Goldsmiths Estate, W3. She says some rubbish has accumulated over years and is layers deep. Residents have so far removed 18 bags of rubbish and recycling and contacted TFL and Ealing Council to cut the brambles back to clear the remainder.

Goldsmiths Estate volunteers

Elisabeth Curlet set up a litter group in the Mill Hill area of South Acton in September 2019 and rejoined Facebook last year to work alongside LAGER Can, led by local resident Cathy Swift.

She says: '' I was delighted to see initiatives taking off across the borough and Cathy's non stop work on the LAGER Can site to encourage others as well as physically participating frequently herself. Impressive! Not many of our South Acton volunteers are on FB so I have set up a Whats App group which works well for us and adds to our sense of community."

Some of the South Acton volunteers

Around 9 people attend most Saturdays from 9.00am for an hour and  most volunteers keep the equipment provided by Ealing Council and do individual litter picks - especially during lockdown.

Numbers have grown and the group cover areas around Avenue Road,Langley Drive, Crown Street, Woodlands Park, Mill Hill Road, Mill Hill Grove, Cheltenham Blocks, Avenue Road Park and Gunnersbury Lane.

Below, Elisabeth documents a recent clear-up:

Yesterday three of us tackled: Woodlands Avenue - a nightmare due to takeaway packaging from the four outlets around the corner: people drive up, park, eat takeaways in cars and discard the waste (there is no bin).
The worst of it is foil, plastic, polystyrene, card, paper is all shredded by crows. They are the cleverest of birds and even though there is no food left, the fact that there MAY be means the crows destroy everything just in case... That then becomes impossible to litter pick and goes into our waterways to block drains, etc. I took a broom, dustpan and brush yesterday and between us after two hours it looked great. This probably lasted just a few hours but we'll keep at it and things will improve. A delightful cafe has opened on the corner - Maison Marhaba - so we treated ourselves to a hot drink and cake as our reward. Delicious! Of course we took our empty cups away and put them in a bin!

We've also asked the Council for bin(s) in the area - and ones that crows cannot access... We went on to Church Road which we knew was a mess. It was indeed so the broom again came in useful. Such a lot of tiny pieces of waste. Another issue people don't think about is that litter gets into gutters and frequently blocks the drain gullies. Small pieces of litter (cigarette butts, tissues, shredded plastic, etc) also get into our waste water system itself. We can report many issues, including blocked gullies, on the Love Clean Streets app. This is an efficient and useful tool for informing Councils across the UK about problems on our streets, parks, roads, graffiti, etc. As I was doing this on Church Road, a cafe owner came across to talk as he was upset that someone had flytipped outside his shop. This I also reported on the app (and told him how it worked). Today, the same three volunteers finished Church Road and, beside Acton Health Centre, dug out of a large hedge a stash of fly tipping from many years ago - a TV, a huge tent, a radiator, a box from a motor scooter, so much wet, heavy clothing. (There is more to do but we'll need the hedge cut back to access.)

She says: '''It is extraordinary to see how bad things have become. People create the mess so we must work out how to incentivise people not to do so. We have one precious planet - it must be looked after. Governments and Councils need to blast forth that it is completely unacceptable to chuck even the smallest items - cigarette ends, tissues, packaging,face coverings, disposable gloves (how unhygienic!). Everything must go in a bin.''


Volunteers cleaning Davis Road and Elizabeth Gardens area

Elisabeth has written to George Eustice, Secretary of State for the Environment, about the Deposit Refund Scheme (DRS) which she believes would make a big difference. If everyone paid a 20p refundable deposit for all single use liquid containers she believes there would be far less rubbish. Scotland intend to introduce the scheme in July 2022 and Elizabeth hopes England will follow suit. She says: "A DRS shares the responsibility between consumer, retailer and manufacturer as we all recognise the parts we can play in saving Planet Earth from human thoughtlessness.''

"A final point is that we need a better waste collection system to reduce fly tipping. In some parts of the world, you can put items out for disposal on a certain day, some people will pick things up to reuse and the local authority collects what remains the following day. It makes a lot of sense to me in the world of reduce, reuse, recycle and indeed a circular economy. Things are changing. Not fast enough for many but I think when we look at the work that individuals are doing through LAGER Can and indeed across the UK we should feel optimistic!'"

Saturday 23/01 Acton litter pick

Anyone interested in joining Goldsmiths group can email on goldsmithsresidents@gmail.com
For South Acton contact elisabethcurlet@gmail.com

LAGER Can (Litter Action Group For Ealing Residents) work alongside the Council and now have over 1,000 members who've been collecting around 2,500 bags of rubbish a month throughout the Borough, as well as many 'unbaggables' - items too big to put in bags.


Annemarie Flanagan

January 28, 2021