Thank you to all our litter pickers this Saturday - Cathy, Livio, Ann, Olena, Martine, Jules, Versha, Bharti, Sue, Anne as well as 4 Good Gymers Sevan, Steph, Madhan and Kash - you can read their report here. We had a strong crew who braved the heat and collected an amazing haul. Much of this was due to a fly-tip down the alleyway beside Ealing Northern which required us to flex our muscles.

Also great to see that some passers-by re-homed some of the stuff that was usable such as a nice garden table & flower pots. We saved some old garden chairs for future events.

In addition, the group split into teams working the David Lloyd Lane as well as the park where we had some incidents of garden waste being dumped in the park. On the face of it, you might think it isn't such a great issue dumping green waste into a park. The problem is that these dumpings can contain controlled invasive species, many of which are controlled under Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act with fines up to £5,000 or prison sentences of up to 2 years. Examples are: 

• Giant hogweed - small amounts of sap can cause blistering of the skin following exposure to sunlight.

• Japanese knotweed - highly invasive and destructive to natural habitats

• Spanish bluebell - hybridises with British bluebell and out-competes it. 

• Three-cornered Garlic - out competes and smothers large areas.

We ended up with 27 bags, 126 unbaggables and 17 bags of green waste.