Cleanup Sulford started in June 2013 and it really grew out of a need and a desire to
help contribute to cleaning Sulford's green spaces. There's so much life here and such
a great diversity of life here that it was such a shame that the places were being polluted to such
a high degree. When we first came here litter was just scattered everywhere all over the place,
all over the play areas, all over the shrubs and the trees. You had so many plastic bags just flying
like flags but all that sort of cleaned up now and we're thinking about moving on to the next site.
I wasn't naive about trying to raise the popularity or awareness of a litter picking
project. I knew that there would be a lot of difficulty in getting it off the ground and so
for the first three or four weeks it was just me in a field with a litter picker and a bag
because I sort of knew and I felt that once people started to see the commitment of one
person or two people it snowballs. I think people really want to help and people want to make a
difference in their environment but they think that there's nothing available, they don't think
there are any platforms to help but as soon as you provide that access I think people are really
willing to get involved.
So far we've cleaned up the majority of the Irwal Bank which stems from the university to the
second bridge down the river and we've cleaned up the majority of the park. One of the great things
is that if you clean up a space to make it more aesthetically pleasing you'll bring people in
but then when you've brought them in they will start to admire the wildlife that's also come in
because of other reasons and so the the mutual benefits are wonderful. If we can instill a value
to people's environments they'll want to protect them, if people think that they own something
they will want to protect it and I think that's one of the greatest things we have to face in
the future if we want to start protecting and conserving nature.
