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Volunteers empty bins before foxes spread rubbish

Morning park users will have seen rubbish strewn by foxes who pull bagged waste from open bins in search for food scraps. The first volunteers have begun emptying the bins just before dark to try to prevent this. More volunteers are needed.

Saturday 15 August was the first night. Two volunteers started at the Bowling Green and cleared the bins up all the way along Cliffview and Vicars Hill to the café and the play area. On the first night we managed to empty 12 bins.

On the second night, taking a trolley and some bungees to enable us to carry more bags, we managed 15 bins.

rubbish on trolleys

Using the trolley enabled us to carry more bags

Party in the park

On Sunday, there were also several black sacks of rubbish people had left from parties in the park, neatly tied up by the bins but an easy target for the foxes.

We also took the rubbish from two parties still going as darkness fell. We asked those park users to take any further food waste home with them, rather than leave it in the bins.

Both nights, with took about 45 minutes. We simply were not able to do the west side of the park too.

Full Bins

On Saturday the bin in Bothy area was already looking full. This was increased by the café carrying two large clear plastic bins down and putting them in there.

rubbish

Bin already full on Saturday night

By Sunday night we had over-filled it. On Monday morning it was clear foxes had got at the rubbish in the Bothy.

bin bags

Overflowing with rubbish by Sunday night

We will take up the lack of bins with the park managers and council. We really need a big bin up near the café as well as at the Bothy. The café also appears to need its own bigger bin.

What we really need is more volunteers. Ideally we need volunteers who can come in and empty the bins on the way up from

  • The corner of Adelaide Avenue and Montague Avenue.
  • The corner of Hilly Fields Crescent and Montague Avenue
  • The lower entrance (steps) off Vicar’s Hill
  • The top of Vicar’s Hill
  • The Bowling Green entrance

That would make each volunteer’s workload very small – perhaps ten minutes each.  With a few volunteers rotating – and we only need to do this on sunny summer days during school holidays – each of us would only need to empty the bins perhaps 15 or 20 times a year.

Get in touch via the contact page if you’d like to help. We have litter grabbers and lots of bin bags.

Big thanks to the park keeper

Our park keeper, who now only works half days in Hilly Fields and half days in Ladywell Fields, has a massive job to do. Emptying the bins is horrible enough without the litter being strewn around by foxes.

Let’s all try to help.

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