Over 20 volunteers braved a very cold & windy (but thankfully dry & sunny) morning to clean up the streams and paths around Trenchard Drive in Llanishen.
Aside from the usual litter (drinks cans & bottles, crisp packets, etc), this morning’s haul included
• a safe
• two shopping trolleys
• a dining chair
• an inflatable paddling pool
• a car seat
• a bed headboard
• a lorry tyre
• loads of old carpet (including four small rolls of the stuff)
• a CO₂ cylinder
• a fire extinguisher
• two long plastic pipes
• several traffic cones
Surprisingly, despite all that, it seemed much cleaner than on previous visits.
We also took the opportunity to remove some of the smaller blockages from the stream.
30 volunteers from Cardiff Rivers Group took a trip to Llanishen today to tackle the awful fly-tipping in the stream running through the woodland that surrounds the estate.
Volunteers spent 2 hours clambering up and down the banks to retrieve 50 bags of rubbish and approximately 4 tonnes of larger items.
Just some of the rubbish colllected.
They collected lorry tyres, carpets, car wheels, supermarket trolleys, a huge amount of treated and laminated wood (eg, fencing, cupboards), bathroom suites, pipes, vacuum cleaners, bags of clothing, lots of general bags of household rubbish and a mountain of discarded furniture.
“I simply don’t understand why some residents don’t dispose of their waste correctly! The woodland is a wonderful habitat that is unfortunately being blighted by illegal tipping. Such a shame people don’t value their local environment and ruin it for everyone else.”
“It was lovely to speak to locals who were very grateful for our efforts. One lady offered us drinks and use of her facilities, another was an avid bird watcher and explained how she enjoyed watching the wildlife use the woods.
We also met a lady who litter-picks the estate and will now sign up as a Keep Wales Tidy Litter Champion – they are setting an excellent example. I just wish other residents followed their lead so we wouldn’t have this problem”.
Cardiff Council Parks Services will collect and dispose of the waste.
On Saturday (20 February) 18 intrepid volunteers braved increasingly heavy rain to tackle the toughest job CRG has yet undertaken — the streams that feed Roath Park, which run either side of Trenchard Drive.
It’s easy to understand why no one else had tackled it for a very long time. The majority of the rubbish had been discarded down a very steep bank between the footpath and one of the streams.
And by “rubbish” we don’t just mean the usual load of drinks cans, crisp packets and bottles. That would have been too easy!
This week’s haul included a huge projection TV, fridge-freezers (plural), several tyres (including a one from something like a tractor), old doors, a table-tennis table, four shopping trolleys, a couple of paddling pools, and some bikes.
We were very pleased to be helped by PC Paul Archer (Neighbourhood Beat Manager for Llanishen) and PCSO Sophie Lyons, who both put a full shift in and didn’t mind getting wet or dirty.
And our VIP for the day was local councillor Phil Bale, who got really stuck in! We hope he enjoyed the experience — anyone that takes selfies with rubbish is ok with us!
We estimate that we filled about 6 truck-loads of assorted rubbish — easily our largest haul to date, and with only 18 people, too.
