Merton Council is calling on local residents and businesses to pull on their gloves, take up their litter picks and get involved in the Big Tidy Up Friday 3 March to Sunday 5 March.
Cranmer School pupils joining in last year’s tidy up
Merton has signed up to Keep Britain Tidy’s UK-wide Big Tidy Up, just one of the ways in which it is working to clear rubbish from the borough’s streets and tackle litter louts who drop tonnes of rubbish in Merton every year at an annual cost of over £5 million to Merton’s taxpayers.
Merton’s Big Tidy Up events will be at the following locations and all are welcome to get involved whether for 15 minutes, an hour or more. Picking up just one piece of litter makes a difference:
Saturday 4 March
1. Meet outside the civic centre
10am -1pm
2. Meet at Haydon’s Road Rec by the car park
10am-1pm
3. Meet at St Helier Roundabout
10am -1pm
4. Figges Marsh area
Meet in the car park near the corner of London Road and Gorringe Park Avenue
10am-1pm
Sunday 5 March
1. Ravensbury Park
Meet at 10am -1pm
Residents and businesses who want to get involved should call 020 8545 3173 and the council will help put them in touch with community clean-up organisers or help them organise their own.
Local environmental group Sustainable Merton will be organising a clean-up in Morden town centre and will be joined by over 20 young people from the Baitul Futuh Mosque in Morden who have a long history of helping with keeping Morden clean.
Sustainable Merton will also be organising a clean-up in Figges Marsh with the residents’ group there. The Gorringe Park Pub staff will be taking part too.
The Friends of Ravensbury Park, at their monthly workday, will be inviting members of the community to join them to ensure the park is spick and span for park users to enjoy.
Councillor Ross Garrod said: “We hate litter and we are taking a zero tolerance approach to the few people who drop their rubbish on our streets at huge cost to the majority of people who are proud of Merton and where they live. Imagine what we could do with the £5million we have to spend on clearing up after the litter louts. There is no excuse to drop rubbish. We have installed over 1,200 litter bins on our streets and in our parks and green spaces and even if they’re full, it’s easy to take your rubbish home with you.”
Sustainable Merton CEO Tom Walsh said: “Only a sick animal fouls its own nest. Is littering a sign of how we feel about the borough we call home? If you feel unhappy with the amount of litter in your area, come and join us and many other residents who want to do something about it during the The Big Tidy UP weekend. For details of the nearest litter pick to you, go on to our website at www.sustainablemerton.org”
Local anti-litter campaigner Dan Goode of Merton Matters said: “It’s great to have the council and community working together getting the message out there that we can all play a part in keeping Merton clean. The council can’t do it all and we all need to do our bit. If just one person from each Merton household picked up one piece of litter it would remove a staggering 80,000 pieces of litter from our streets. Such an insignificant action from each household could make an astounding difference. A combination of litterers using bins and residents helping to bin litter, has the potential to permanently transform Merton.”
Regional Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association youth leader for South West London Aamer Hafeez said: “Our members have enjoyed living in the borough of Merton for decades and so any opportunity to help our local community is a much welcomed one. Cleaning the streets of Morden town centre also presents us with an opportunity to become better Muslims as cleanliness in Islam is an important part of a Muslim’s faith. Cleaning the community we live in is an integral part of our faith and a civic responsibility. We are a peace loving and well organised association which will continue to help make this great part of London an even better place to live in.”
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