Community clean-up in Mayow Park

 Our community litter-picking events in Mayow Park are enjoyable social gatherings with a serious purpose.

We aim to collect as much litter as possible – of course. But we also aim to help wildlife living in the park by removing items that could cause them harm including plastic debris and wet wipes.  This is rubbish left by people, sometimes carelessly, but at other times   perhaps assuming that someone else will clear it up.

Our most recent event on 4^th August 2022 was during the school holiday and a great opportunity for families to join us. The weather was warm and sunny. Ideal. We met near the cafe and agreed which areas are most in need of litter clearance.  We got into groups and off we went.

Our local PCSO Andrea represented the Perry Vale police and worked with some children who were excited to see her as they know her from her visits to local schools.

PCSO Andrea with her team of helpers

We collected 14 bags of rubbish plus bits of garden fencing, metal items and a cushion. There were the usual items such as sweet and food packaging, paper, card, wet wipes, cans, glass bottles, plastic bottles, cigarette stubs and plastic covers from disposable drinking straws. 

Some of the volunteers

One of the volunteers did an awesome job of collecting rubbish in the fenced-off area adjacent to Mayow Road and which is normally locked. Our helpers were 8 children, 13 adults and 1 dog. The photo shows a few of those willing workers.

Thank you to Glendale staff for providing rubbish bags and litter-picking sticks and collecting the rubbish pile when we had finished. Thank you to the park users who volunteered to help and to the parents for bringing children to take part.

 Councillor Susan Wise joined us after the litter pick for entertainment by Nzinga Dance near the children’s playground. This was arranged by Nancy at Lewisham Council. Nzinga Dance is a performing arts organisation bringing African and African Caribbean dance to audiences. The two dancers wore traditional costume, played traditional drums and music. It was tempting for some of the audience to join in with the dancing. This was entertainment for young and old while a few children queued to have their faces painted. What a treat it was.

Thank you to Nancy for these lovely photos.

Audience participation

Nzinga Dance in action

June 2021 litter picking fun

 3rd June 2021.  What a great day for our park litter clean-up as part of Tidy Britain’s Great British Spring Clean. Thank you for the love and care shown to Mayow Park. 

Early this morning  ( 8am) some individuals gave their time to collect litter to make the park a more pleasant place to spend time in. This was ahead of our community clean-up.

Then, a few hours later, Friends of Mayow Park volunteers with Glendale and the local Safer Neighbourhood Team held a communal annual litter picking event.

We had 7 children in 3 family groups, FOMP committee members, Glendale’s Fabio, Emanuel, Ainsley and Vieira plus two PCSOs - Andrea and her colleague.  Vieira brought his two children on his day off!

In total we collected NINE bags of rubbish even after the early morning clean-up session.

Thank you to Lisa L and Hannah L for bringing your children to join and help. 

Thank you to Glendale for supplying black bags and  the loan of  litter picker sticks. 

And a very big THANK YOU to B & G Cafe for providing drinks to volunteers after the event.

Some of the rubbish collected

  A few of the wonderful volunteers 

My litter picking adventure by Matilda

 The Friends of Mayow Park committee found out that some of our younger park users care enough about the park that they decided to do something about the litter problem. Read Matilda's report below. Would you be willing to take part in Matilda's suggestion for a monthly litter-pick?

We welcome posts from children who want to improve Mayow Park for everyone to enjoy.

My name's Matilda and I live very close to Mayow Park in Adamsrill Road. It's my favourite park because I know all of the names of most of the dogs, everyone in the park says hello to you, and there are lots of places to explore.

But recently I noticed that there has been more and more horrible litter being dropped, particularly in the areas where me and my friends like to explore, in the trees along the sides of the park.

So I decided to do something about it. First of all I asked for a litter picking stick for Christmas, which I got, and then I got a group of friends together who were also annoyed at the litter. This group was made up of twins Rosanna & Zander, Jessica, Prue and Barnaby.

Matilda's Christmas present

We collected 5 big bags of rubbish just from one side of the park alone, in the beautiful green trees, and 2 refuse sacks full. 

I think there should be one day a month when everyone who enjoys the park should come and pick some litter up, at least one bag. You don't even need a litter picking stick, my Grandad says you can use a stick with a nail in the end.

A small selection of rubbish collected

Oh and also, please stop walking on the lovely flowers, my brother is 2 and gets very upset and recently started an argument with a grown man about it!

Matilda. 6.

Keep Mayow Tidy (and follow the regs!)

 Words by Pippa Moss; Photos A Sheridan

Keep Britain Tidy’s Great British Spring Clean, usually held in March, was of course postponed this year – a pandemic arrived! FOMP had planned a litter picking event for it, which we had to cancel. The postponed GB Spring Clean happened in September instead. Friends of Mayow Park couldn’t organise anything big and official with all the social distancing regulations so we just chose a date and gathered six volunteers. It fell under the permitted Lewisham Covid volunteering category of ‘tending and managing habitats’. Our intention was therefore to clear the woodland and grassland habitats within the park of littered items and make them safer for wildlife. We were able to let Glendale (the team that manages the park on behalf of Lewisham Council) and the Safer Neighbourhood Team know the date so they could separately, but on the same date, be in the park too. Glendale helpfully provided bags, picker sticks and took away the litter!

It went very well. Between the 3 groups we collected 24 bags of litter, a random Hoover and a teddy bear as well! We headed into the bushes and woodland areas that we could access so it was a thorough job! Extra point for me for managing to get a sore shoulder from also carrying around a large heavy hand sanitiser bottle in my handbag!

We were all shocked by the amount of wet wipes - they overtook Haribo sweet packets by far this year. These wipes will sit around for years, they don’t decompose and they certainly don’t help the wildlife in the park.      

 I think we all know wet wipes have their uses. I used to pride myself in the baby days of what I could clean up with just one wet wipe - and I always disposed of it responsibly. The fact we probably collected 200 of them shows they are being used excessively and carelessly.

                     

Next litter pick I plan to collect recycling separately - it is rather depressing when it all gets lumped together. It might involve some bag juggling but I think it will be worth it - cans and bottles are a big part of what we collect.

The community has really been enjoying Mayow Park during these last 6 months - we know this space has been really valuable to all of us to escape our homes, which we have spent so much time in. To be honest after all these months of heavy use, the litter pick could have been a much greater challenge - it just shows that most people really are caring for the park. There is also a growing awareness that any bags left neatly tied next to the bins with the best of intention, do in fact end up shredded by foxes. They need to be taken home.

Anyway the great thing is that there are always willing volunteers to help on these litter picks, and anyone who has never used a litter picking stick always states how great they are to use! I’m still trying to find a handbag friendly one... see me soon on Dragon’s Den with my telescopic handbag litter picker invention!

Pippa Moss September 2020

CLEANUP IN MAYOW PARK

This article was written by Daniella Levene  from CleanUp UK who gave permission for us to post it.

Megan & Paulette

The community event  was organised by Paulette and Megan  at Lewisham Plus  http://plus-services.org/  and supported by Daniella.    

Megan with Lewisham councillors

Most of us litter pick because we are concerned about the environment, but group litter picks have so many benefits aside from the environmental one and you don’t even have to litter pick to take part! You could help sign people in, sort equipment, bake a cake, chat to passers-by, organise, design a poster, make some tea, or just walk around for company because you care and want to be sociable. Last Saturday’s pick in Mayow Park (14^th September) was a great example of how meaningful they can be.

The PLUS pickers had their first successful pick in the summer in Folkstone Gardens and were keen for more. As Rob Agrawal, Head of Service at PLUS said, “Litter picking is such a rewarding thing to do as everybody is able to participate to some extent and the results are obvious and immediate’.

One participant, Megan, enjoyed it so much and wanted to organise one closer to home. With help from her fabulous support worker Paulette, we met Alona, Chair of the Friends of Mayow Park, who was happy to support but at first wasn’t sure if the park needed a clean. Mayow Park on first appearances is very clean and it is well looked after; it has a park keeper (Ainsley) twice a week, an active Friends’ group, and is clearly loved by its many users.

However, like most well used parks, when you start to really look you will see the gleam of plastic, perhaps a bit of straw wrapper taken by the wind, or a plastic bottle deliberately chucked in a bush (out of sight, out of mind), or the thousands of cigarettes (it is estimated that 4.5 trillion cigarettes butts are littered each year), which most smokers aren’t even aware are harmful.

 After our walkabout to check out Mayow Park and see what we could do a date was set. Megan and Paulette contacted their friends, put up posters and with some support from me and Glendale everything was in place for the day, with fingers crossed for sunny skies. Thankfully the weather delivered, and it was beautiful day!

These young people arrived in the park and wanted to help Daniella 

In all 29 people took part, including three wonderful young pickers, as their guardian Jill stated, “They walk through the park on the way to and from school and come every weekend, so it was good to see them having fun while helping the environment and the park they love.”

We were also joined by councillors Susan Wise, John Paschoud and Jacq Paschoud and,from NDTi, Madeline Cooper-Ueki who inspired PLUS to get involved after hearing her talk about social inclusivity, as she surmised about the day, “Communities and friendships are built when we come together to do things that matter in our neighbourhoods. All too often people with learning disabilities are seen as recipients of help from those around them. Megan’s role in making this park cleanup such a success captures how the opposite is the case. Communities benefit most when everyone is included!”

Cllr John Paschoud with young helpers

A total of 10 bags of rubbish was cleared, not the biggest haul but that's not really the point. Every piece collected is one less harming our environment and wildlife AND OF EQUAL IMPORTANCE, those involved are a little bit more connected.

Young helper knows where to find litter

Young helper picks up litter

The PLUS pickers are keen to get involved in more community litter picks. If you'd like to join them or organise one, please get in touch.

LINKS TO WEBSITES OF PARTICIPATING ORGANISATIONS

CleanupUK:   cleanupuk.org.uk  

                       https://www.facebook.com/TheBeautifulBoroughsProject/

               twitter.com/Cleanup_UK

                      instagram.com/cleanup_uk

Lewisham Plus http://plus-services.org/

Rob Agrawal (Head of Service) PLUS (Providence LINC United Services)

6 Belmont Hill, Lewisham, London, SE13 5BD

 
NDTi https://www.ndti.org.uk  

SPRING CLEAN TIME

28^th March 2019 and our planned Spring Clean in Mayow Park arrived. We were taking part in the annual one-month-long national campaign organised by the charity Keep Britain Tidy.   https://www.keepbritaintidy.org/

This community-led event aims to clean up litter from our streets, parks and beaches. In particular, we are all aware of the huge amount of publicity about single-use plastic, how it harms wildlife and makes an area feel unloved. For our event, our focus was only on Mayow Park.

Today’s event included our local Safer Neighbourhood team of police,  our park keeper and one of his colleagues, five pupils from year three of Our Lady and St Philip Neri primary school with their class teacher Mrs Moss as well as FOMP (Friends of Mayow Park) volunteers and a very well-behaved dog. The children met the police and held their litter picking sticks high to show they were keen to get to work.

Children with their litter sticks at the ready 

Our park-keeper spends just two days a week in our park but in those two days he can’t go into all the wooded areas of the park to clear up tiny pieces of plastic and dumped items. Today’s event was also aimed at helping him.

spreading out to seek out litter

Armed with our litter picks and big bin bags we all headed off .

The wooded space parallel to Mayow Road was full of rubbish including empty fast food containers, bottles, cans and general rubbish. Some of the spring-clean team stayed there for most of the morning, removing as much as they could.

into the woods

Others went into wooded areas around the park perimeter and along the meadow.

The children and their teacher did their pick-up mainly in the open spaces, which at first glance appeared relatively litter-free. Yet they managed to fill TWO large bin bags with rubbish. The children commented on how many Haribo sweet wrappers and empty packets they found. They had to leave us after roughly 45 minutes and return to school. Their help was invaluable.

When we all gathered together at the end of the clean-up we were surprised to see we had filled 15 bin bags with rubbish but we had not been able to recycle anything as most recyclables were ‘contaminated’,  meaning too dirty to put into recycling bins. The police, with their equipment, had also found two large knives which had been discarded in the woodland running alongside Mayow Road.

Not buried treasure!

Some of those involved in our event & bags of rubbish

Thank you to everyone who joined in today. The general feeling was that we had achieved much, collected a lot of rubbish and helped to clean up our much-loved park. At the same time it raised the question of why some people seem to feel it is OK to drop litter.

We are aiming to take part in the National Spring Clean again next year.