Buckinghamshire Council joins country’s "biggest mass-action" environmental campaign

The campaign, usually known as the Great British Spring Clean, was postponed in March due to Coronavirus and has been rescheduled for 11-27 September 2020. Over 600,000 people countrywide have promised to give up their time and take action to clean up Britain’s streets, parks and beaches.

Last year the former district councils who now work together as Buckinghamshire Council, supported 63 events organised by parish councils, community groups and environmental groups involving over 1100 volunteers who together collected more than 2500 bags of rubbish!

The Waste and Street Scene teams are keen to encourage local initiatives and help to keep communities litter-free by lending long-handled litter picks (subject to availability) and providing rubbish sacks. We’ll also provide free collection of the bagged litter once you’ve finished, but this needs to be arranged prior to the litter pick so that we can agree a collection point.

Here's how you can get involved and show support for the Great British September Clean:

Organise a private clean-up with up to five other family and friends.

Pledge to do your own individual clean-up you can give as little as 15 minutes to the campaign.

Buckinghamshire Council Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change, Bill Chapple OBE said:

“As lockdown eases many of us have taken to the great outdoors and unfortunately this has led to an increase of litter, not just in Buckinghamshire but right across the country. With many places being closed to the public more of us are eating on the go and sadly not all of us are disposing of our rubbish responsibly.

“According to a Keep Britain Tidy survey: in 2018 to 2019, local authorities spent £698,819,000 on street cleansing, this is an astonishing amount of money which would be better spent elsewhere. Our Waste teams have continued their clean ups throughout the pandemic tackling litter as best they can but we can always use extra help.

“I hope that in years to come we no longer have to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds simply putting people's rubbish in the bin for them. Of course the easiest solution is for people to stop littering, take their rubbish home and recycle it, or use the bins provided. For every person that does dispose of their litter responsibly, I would like to say thank you.

“The Great British September Clean is a fantastic opportunity for our residents to get out there and help keep Buckinghamshire beautiful. If you have some community spirit and some time to spare, please support the campaign and stop litter from spoiling our environment and ruining our outdoor spaces.”

Forms for requesting equipment will be on the Waste pages on our website (www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk) closer to the event date so please keep checking.

You can find out more about the national campaign, sign up and register your clean up at: www.keepbritaintidy.org/home