27-03-2025
School children join litter-picking campaign
Pupils at a Kent primary school have played their part in a litter-picking campaign to help clean up local villages.
There are twelve pop-up events planned in East Kent villages, including in Sandwich, Eastry and Tower Hamlets in Dover.
On one pick, seventeen bags of rubbish were gathered in two hours by teachers and the 100 children from Eythorne and Elvington Primary School in their village.
Items included a bicycle tyre, paint brush and roofing felt, as well as pizza boxes and other fast food debris.
The scheme is part of the Great British Spring Clean, which is organised by Keep Britain Tidy and now in its tenth year. Dover District Council has led the campaign locally.
Rebecca Dyer, community development manager at the council, said the authority spent £1.5m each year on street cleaning.
"So we are trying to educate and engage people from a young age," she told BBC Radio Kent.
Kelly Taylor is the teaching assistant who encouraged the whole of Eythorne and Elvington Primary School to take part.
"I have been surprised how much rubbish there is when you start to look and pick," she said.
"There are lots of little pieces, but then whole chairs."
The campaign will end with a final pick at King George V Recreation Ground in St Margaret's at Cliffe on 6 April.
Since 2016, Keep Britain Tidy says the the Great British Spring Clean has become the nation's biggest mass-action environmental campaign.
Waste management company Veolia is also clearing roadsides over the next two weeks in Kent.
The company cleared 23 tonnes (23,000kg) of litter from the road between the Duke of York and Whitfield roundabouts on the A2 in 2024 as part of a council initiative.
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