Litter Picking Communities across Essex

Active Essex

In Essex, we want to ensure we are creating spaces where people can be more active, and we know that active environments around us can make a real difference to our health and wellbeing.

We have had selfless individuals and groups across Essex coming together in unison to help clean up the areas in which they live and work. Billericay Litter Pickers, Castle Point Clean Up Crew, Friends of Concord beach, Great Berry Community Group, Litter-less Leigh, Laindon Litter Pickers, and the Wickford Wombles to name a few, have been working hard in their spare time to do their bit to create a better environment on their doorstep.

There are many social, mental, and physical benefits to litter picking. Not only are you serving your community by helping provide clean and safe environments it also allows the opportunity to meet likeminded individuals and create a sense of community and wellbeing. The physical benefits are plentiful, you are on your feet and actively travelling around your areas which has improved peoples physical activity levels and their step count, without even necessarily thinking about it. We caught up with a few of the groups to find out why they decided to start the group and what they hoped to achieve.

Castle Point Clean Up Crew shared; “We are passionate about working as a community to keep our borough clean and to help protect the natural environment. Over the years, our volunteers have found friends through the group and benefited both physically and mentally. Our group has grown from 100 to over 1000 members in last 2 years, which has been fantastic.”

Friends of Concord Beach explained; “Our chairman Colin has done so much over the years to help improve the rundown seafront at Concord Beach. We have slowly developed a little group of volunteers who meet every Sunday morning, no matter the weather to keep the beach, lawn, parks and Esplanade litter free. It’s been so good for the health and soul of everyone in the group.”

Laindon Litter Pickers commented; “We now have a core group of volunteers who are regularly participate in organised litter picks in the Laindon and Langdon Hills areas. They are all motivated by a general desire to do something, about the damage caused to wildlife and nature by littering and fly-tipping, especially plastic pollution. Many are also keen on the physical and mental wellness benefits associated with getting out and about and connecting with other people.”

Wickford Wombles said; “It’s like useful Yoga…the bending, stretching and crawling to get that stubborn piece just out of reach…mindful too, with the satisfaction of seeing a heavily littered area look so much better. It’s so rewarding to know that so many potential hazards to our wildlife have been removed.”

Through the Find Your Active campaign, we have been able to support and fund some of these groups so that they can keep up the great work they are doing across the county. We were also able to provide litter picking packs to families in the school holidays, which they could take and use in one of Essex’s County Parks. Small initiatives like this, are so impactful and empower people to do something good for their community, where a clean and tidy place is maintained for residents to enjoy.

All the groups have been working hard within their communities to achieve a common goal of looking after their area and maintaining their environments. If you want to find out more about the groups or to join one, then visit their pages at the links below:

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