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School children join litter-picking campaign

Jo Burn
BBC News, Eythorne
Jo Burn/BBC A group of children are seen from the back, they are wearing hi-viz vests and carrying litter pickers and clear rubbish bags. They are walking along a pavement with a road on one side and grassy area on the other.Jo Burn/BBC
The children went out litter-picking and collected 17 bags

Pupils at a Kent primary school have played their part in a litter-picking campaign to help clean up local villages.

There are twelve pop-up events planned in East Kent villages, including in Sandwich, Eastry and Tower Hamlets in Dover.

On one pick, seventeen bags of rubbish were gathered in two hours by teachers and the 100 children from Eythorne and Elvington Primary School in their village.

Items included a bicycle tyre, paint brush and roofing felt, as well as pizza boxes and other fast food debris.

The scheme is part of the Great British Spring Clean, which is organised by Keep Britain Tidy and now in its tenth year. Dover District Council has led the campaign locally.

Rebecca Dyer, community development manager at the council, said the authority spent £1.5m each year on street cleaning.

"So we are trying to educate and engage people from a young age," she told BBC Radio Kent.

Jo Burn/BBC Rebecca stands with a bag of rubbish in one hand and a litter picker in the other. She is wearing gym clothes and is looking at the camera and smiling. Behind her is a decorated van with trees and leaves on.Jo Burn/BBC
Rebecca Dyer says the council spends £1.5m each year on street cleaning

Kelly Taylor is the teaching assistant who encouraged the whole of Eythorne and Elvington Primary School to take part.

"I have been surprised how much rubbish there is when you start to look and pick," she said.

"There are lots of little pieces, but then whole chairs."

Jo Burn/BBC Bags of rubbish are piled up on a patch of grass. There are around ten of them and you can just make out cans and cardboard in some of them.Jo Burn/BBC
Among the litter, children found a bicycle tyre, paint brush and pizza boxes on one pick

The campaign will end with a final pick at King George V Recreation Ground in St Margaret's at Cliffe on 6 April.

Since 2016, Keep Britain Tidy says the the Great British Spring Clean has become the nation's biggest mass-action environmental campaign.

Waste management company Veolia is also clearing roadsides over the next two weeks in Kent.

The company cleared 23 tonnes (23,000kg) of litter from the road between the Duke of York and Whitfield roundabouts on the A2 in 2024 as part of a council initiative.

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