Clean-up in the bag for Shrewsbury litter picking volunteers
An army of volunteer litter pickers is helping to clean up Shrewsbury.
The Shrewsbury Litter Action Project was in Mereside this weekend on its latest mission to clean up neighbourhoods.
And a special trailer, donated by a supporter and with its own registration, SLAP1, was pressed into action.
The group was started by Jill Bennett from Castlefields, who moved to Shrewsbury about 20 years ago.
"I have litter picked for about 30 years, but by myself," she said.
"Then last year I posted some of the litter picking along the River Severn on social media and got such a good response that I wondered whether other people would like to join me. A few people came along to the first event in June and it has just snowballed from there."
The group meets once or twice a month and chooses a different area of Shrewsbury to visit each time, spending a couple of hours picking litter.
Friends
Mrs Bennett said about 30 people have been involved in the project with one, Sarah Yates, having been to every event.
"I didn't know any of the volunteers before the project began and now we have become friends - they are a lovely bunch of people," she said.
Help has come from both Shropshire Council and Shrewsbury Town Council, donating equipment and bin bags and taking the rubbish away.
"We are also being helped by Stan Sedman who does tours of the town and donated the money to charity.
"He recently gave us a wonderful trailer in which we can put the bags of rubbish as we are going along."
Mrs Bennett said there were hundreds of people in Shrewsbury and further afield who picked up litter, individually, day after day.
"We met one of the gentlemen, Eric, in Mereside on Saturday," she said.
Anyone who would like to get involved in the Shrewsbury Litter Action Project can find more information on the group's Facebook page - facebook.com/slapshrewsbury
"Once the historical litter has gone, it will be a lot easier to maintain the areas," added Mrs Bennett.