We are continually grateful and inspired by the passion people show for our precious lowland heaths. After raising the required funds to purchase the parcel of land at the heart of Upton Heath, the local community (and beyond) joined us for three litter picking sessions throughout June.
Hailing from the local Poole area and wider Dorset, 29 volunteers, including three children, gave their time to help improve this special habitat. We also had two staff members from Dorset Heaths Partnership kindly join us, contributing to a combined total of 72 hours of litter picking across the three events - an incredible start to improving this area for wildlife and visitors.
Each session started with volunteers signing in and receiving an important safety briefing, covering the essentials to keep themselves and others safe. Volunteers were then provided with personal protective equipment, bin bags and litter pickers before heading out. Where possible, litter was sorted and consolidated into fewer bags to reduce waste before being placed into our trailer for removal.
We focused on the worst-affected area of the nature reserve, known as ‘the canyons’, an area of undulating bare clay with steep sides. Among the litter found here was, a broken petrol hedge cutter, multiple bikes, chairs, traffic cones, clothing, camping equipment, scrap metal, food wrappers, and drink cans / bottles. Luckily, we found fewer disposable vapes than expected; these can pose a huge fire risk due to the batteries in them, which have been known to explode at waste management facilities. The rubbish removed from this relatively small part of the nature reserve was enough to fill an average sized skip!
