The big clean-up

THE throw-away society is finding its local canals only too handy for dumping its rubbish, as the recent Big Clean Up by the Inland Waterways Association well proved.

An Autumn of IWA canal clean ups took place over 11 days by IWA branches around the country between the 21st September and 23rd November.

20 miles

During the two month period 20 miles of towpath were cleared of litter and vegetation and 17 miles of canal bed were grappled for rubbish. The clean ups took place in eight cities on eight different waterways over 11 days, with Birmingham, Leicester, London, Nottingham, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Sheffield and Warwick being the cities that have benefited from the campaign.

The work parties were organised by eight different IWA branches and regions and were supported by Canal & River Trust and local organisations, who supplied six work boats across the 11 days of events, along with some work boats supplied by a city council for one of the events.

Unusual items

As well as the usual bicycles, shopping trolleys, motorbikes and tyres, among the more unusual items were a camera, a lamppost, an office chair and a huge number of fence panels.

Over the nine weeks, 317 volunteers contributed a whopping total of 1,634 volunteer hours to cleaning up the city canals around the waterway network. The volunteers included IWA members and non-members alike, along with members of other waterway organisations, Navy Cadets and Cubs and Scouts.