Transcript
Toby: Today I’m down with the Don Catchment Rivers Trust. They’ve been, over the course of the last few years doing litter picks, here at the side of the River Rother and across all the other rivers that feed into the Don Catchment. I’m here with Charlotte, a team of volunteers who are involved in this work. Just tell us about how it actually works, Charlotte.
Charlotte: Yes. So, yeah, we’ve been doing litter picks and cleanups around Chesterfield for quite a few years and all through a dedicated group of volunteers, at least once a month to help out. So, it can be litter picks, but we also do some vegetation management and a lot of surveys as well about our wildlife and our river fly invertebrates which we look at for water quality indicators. So, yeah. Without all the volunteers getting involved it wouldn’t be anything.
Toby: Yeah, and I mean it’s great to be here. Today we are going to be checking the water quality as well as hopefully getting a few more bags of litter so really great to see the work that these volunteers are doing and if people do want to join the team how can they get in touch with you?
Charlotte: Yeah, so they can look on our website. dcrt.org.uk or send us emails or anything to ask about what is going on but it’s all… if you want to help out on a volunteering session, it’s all advertised on our events calendar. You can just go on and have a look what’s going on in your area and there should be something every week or twice a week.
Toby: That’s great and we are here down at Birdholme, what we call Clubby Field here, what other areas in Chesterfield do you cover?
Charlotte: So, we go up in Queens Park every other month. Start by the cricket pitch area and then we head around and do litter picks around there. So that’s quite a frequent one and that’s one where we sort the rubbish, I think you’ve heard about that before, we sort that one into categories and see what our biggest polluters are, and then we do stuff up at Barlow Brook, in Somersall Park, Loundsley Green, all of these really nice spaces and try and look after.
Toby: Well, I’m not the kind of guy that just turns up for a photo shoot, so I’m going to be getting a bag and filling it with any litter that the Wombles haven’t manage to find. See you soon.