County Durham’s Big Spring Clean has now begun – with volunteers across the county pitching in to tidy up their village, town or neighbourhood.
The Big Spring Clean kicked off in February at the Locomotion Museum in Shildon. But – with the clean-up campaign running until Tuesday April 9th – there’s still time for County Durham’s residents, community groups, schools and businesses who haven’t signed up yet to get involved.
This year, Durham County Council has teamed up with Litterfree Durham and Darlington and Darlington Borough Council to help people organise litter picks in their local areas.
2018’s Big Spring Clean saw an incredible 3,041 volunteers taking part in 204 litter picks all over County Durham.
The volunteers donated over 5,267 hours of their time to the campaign and collected 3,021 bags of rubbish.
In the Darlington Borough Council area, 1,090 volunteers took part in 68 clean-ups. The Darlington volunteers gave up 1,150 hours of their time and filled 1,102 bags with litter.
Durham County Council’s cabinet member for neighbourhoods and local partnerships, Cllr Brian Stephens, said, “I would like to thank everyone who has volunteered so far and remind people that it’s not too late to sign up for this year’s Big Spring Clean and become a Litter Hero.”
“We have been recycling as much of the collected waste as we can this year, making this year’s campaign our greenest yet.”
The Big Spring Clean encourages local residents, businesses and organisations to get together to tidy up their streets, parks and open spaces. If you would like to organise a litter pick in County Durham, please email litterfreedurham@durham.gov.uk or telephone 03000 260 000.
If you would like to organise a litter pick in the Darlington area, please email litterfreedarlington@darlington.gov.uk or telephone 01325 406 719.
In other news, a number of organisations in County Durham have recently committed to phasing out all unnecessary single-use plastics, as these products are extremely harmful to the environment.
(The featured image shows volunteers at the launch of the Big Spring Clean at the Locomotion Museum, Shildon.)
