20 volunteers from CRG, working in partnership with the Council’s Community & Urban Park Rangers, spent a gloriously sunny morning tacking some horrendous domestic fly-tipping in what could be a beautiful green space behind Snowden Road & Caerwent Road, Ely.
First order of the day was cutting through all the bramble and other vegetation to actually get to the rubbish — huge thanks to the Rangers for wielding brushcutters and hedgetrimmers.
Then it was a matter of everyone picking up what was clearly years’ worth of fly-tipping, with the best-before dates on the crisp packets and drinks cans accurately recording when the many layers had been deposited.
And it wasn’t just “litter” — it included two fridge-freezers, half-a-dozen mattresses, several now-deflated paddling pools, three armchairs, five TVs, two vacuum cleaners, lots of children’s toys, and
bags full of disposable nappies.
Everything had to be carried over very uneven ground, negotiated past assorted metal structures intended to keep bikes out, and thenmoved down a 30m long 1m wide alleyway before it could be loaded onto vehicles.
We have no idea how many bags we filled with rubbish — there were just far too many to keep a count of — but all-in-all the morning’s haul filled five tipper trucks, with about half-a-trailer-load of scrap metal.
Obviously, we could only clear so much in two hours and, sadly, there is still at least the same amount again still to remove. And that’s only what was visible — the dense vegetation covering most of the rest of the area no doubt hides lots more.
What’s truly baffling is why anyone chose to throw it over a back fence* — most of it would have been taken away for free in regular general waste or recycling collections.
*given how inaccessible the area is, there’s really no other plausible explanation for how it all got there.