Seeing more trash in London parks? Volunteers and city officials are playing catch up to clean it

Isha Bhargava · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 20, 2025 6:30 AM EDT | Last Updated: 11 minutes ago

Recyclable containers, java containers, plastic h2o bottles and integrative bags. 

These items are among the trash scattered crossed London parks along the Thames River's waterways. And with a accelerated snowfall melt successful caller weeks heading into spring, the garbage has travel retired of hiding and is backmost successful plain sight. 

"We had a batch much snow, truthful things got trapped successful the snowbanks and erstwhile it melted, we went from snowbanks to having each this litter successful our ditches and successful parks on the river," said Todd Sleeper, laminitis of the Thames River Clean Up group. 

"The biggest happening we spot is plastics ... they lavation down erstwhile the snowfall melts or it blows astir erstwhile the wind's blowing hard and it's truly atrocious for our environment."

Sleeper's volunteer-run organization, made up of much than 1,000 members successful communities spanning into areas specified as Stratford, Ingersoll, Woodstock and others, is gearing up for its 26th yearly outpouring cleanup of the Thames River's full watershed adjacent month. 

City officials typically spot much garbage connected the streets and successful parks this clip of year, but this winter's dense snowfall made it harder to entree and cleanable up, said Paul Yeoman, the city's manager of parks and forestry. 

As the snowfall rapidly melts, higher levels of water along the stream person besides impeded cleanup efforts, said Yeoman, adding that his squad is ramping up unit to marque definite parks are clean. 

"Both the shoreline and parkland conditions tin truly interaction our quality to get successful and bash larger standard cleanups," helium said. "We privation to marque definite things are harmless for everyone progressive and that we tin really entree things and we don't person issues with equipment." 

The discarded has been particularly disposable adjacent stateless camps but Yeoman said the city's Coordinated Informed Response teams person been regularly cleaning up and moving with radical surviving successful those encampments to code immoderate wellness and information concerns, including temporarily relocating them. 

Tom Cull is co-founder of Antler River Rally, different grassroots radical which cleans 1 country of the stream each period and works intimately with Sleeper's Thames River Clean Up. More Londoners are taking announcement of the litter and trash and are stepping up to assistance out, with galore bringing their ain bags to prime up trash portion retired connected walks, helium said. 

"People person each kinds of reasons wherefore they're upset with seeing garbage on the riverway and successful parks. It's unsightly, they're disquieted astir animals and plants that besides telephone these spaces their homes and that benignant of contamination poses a existent hazard to their health," Cull said. 

"They're besides disquieted astir the contamination of our waterways due to the fact that the aforesaid h2o that flows successful our veins is the aforesaid arsenic h2o flowing successful our lakes and streams."

Both Sleeper and Cull said they're encouraged by the renewed involvement from Londoners who privation to assistance and some are grooming caller volunteers. Their groups volition big the yearly cleanup, successful concern with the metropolis connected April 12.  

Meanwhile, the metropolis volition person its 30th yearly Clean and Green campaign, which includes a "20-minute London makeover," where radical tin prime up litter extracurricular their homes and workplaces for 20 minutes connected April 11.