A husband and wife team embarked on a mission to clean up woodlands at Lymm which had been left littered with rubbish by young party goers using potentially lethal Nitrous Oxide gas canisters.
After being alerted about the litter by a dog walking friend, Paul and Stella Connor from the Warrington Outdoors and Plastic Free Warrington clean up groups, literally got on their bikes to clean up the mess left at Spud Wood and Helsdale Wood at Lymm.
Paul said: “We were gob-smacked to see that there were indeed perhaps 200-300 silver laughing gas canisters there, along with enough litter in that general vicinity to fill 4 large bin bags! Not to mention the large tent which had been fly-tipped there – we’ll be reporting that to the council via the reporting page on their website.
“On our way home we spotted plenty more litter on the lower High School fields – a near-future job for us or another volunteer I’m sure.
“Needless to say, this has to stop. It’s a potential silver lining for this lockdown that the kids get more time to be kids and enjoy being together outdoors – great – but perhaps before they set out they could be encouraged to take some bin bags with them, or otherwise plan how they will dispose of their trash – Not to mention the health problems from inhaling that amount of laughing gas! What are they thinking!
The couple have taken the rubbish home to dispose of it. Prior to lockdown Paul says the council “were great about taking our pickings away when left tagged near bins – which we would tell them the locations of.
“They’ll no doubt be great again once they have capacity to take our rubbish away again.
“I gather they have a quarter of the funding they used to have and thus the same fraction of staff compared to just a few years ago – so they really appreciate the contribution of groups like Warrington Outdoors and sister campaign Plastic Free Warrington and Clean Up My Community Warrington, not to mention all the individual litter pickers I’m regularly meeting!
“To me – the community that drops the litter should be also picking up the litter. Throwing council money at such a widespread and avoidable problem just detracts from key services like social care which are not avoidable and so important.”
Paul concluded: “Communities spotting and fixing problems used to be the norm – and I feel strongly that we need to return to that mentality. Being the change that we want to see.
For more information on Plastic Free Warrington visit https://plasticfreewarrington.org/ or Warrington Outdoors here https://www.facebook.com/WarringtonRivers/
Police warn of lethal dangers of Nitrous Oxide after “massive” increase in empty canisters
