Wrexham Litter Pickers

July 2024 Award

Wrexham Litter pickers was started in 2021 by Kelly Evans.
Kelly used to go litter picking on her own before the pandemic. She started the Wrexham Litter Pickers Facebook at the beginning of 2021. She first posted on Wrexham Town Matters Facebook page, highlighting that she had collected 19 bags of rubbish on her own, even during the snow!
This post received over 600 likes and lots of positive comments and this inspired her to set up Wrexham Litter Pickers own Facebook page.
During lockdown people were keen to join, get out and help make a difference. In the first five months over 2000 people joined the Facebook page. Kelly organised equipment to be donated by local councils and the Keep Wales Tidy organisation. They donated bin bags, hoops for keeping the bags open and gloves. Two local businesses, JCB and Nigel’s Blinds donated high vis vests.
Kelly liaised with Wrexham Council and a system was set up so that litter pickers were able to leave the red bin bags next to a waste bin and the council then collect them and take them to their re-cycling centre.

If people are unable to leave the bags by a bin, there is now an email set up especially for Wrexham Litter Pickers to notify the council where the rubbish can be collected from.
From January 2021 to the start of December 2021, over 9,000 bags had been collected.
As well as rubbish that can be collected in bags, the litter pickers have found car bumpers, tyres, and lawn mowers.

The scheme is having a huge positive impact on the wildlife in the area. Previously they had been finding mice, rabbits, and hedgehogs, trapped inside bottles and tins, or tangled in wire.
There are currently 40 pickers, actively picking at present. They got out daily or weekly. Kelly herself has been going in a group on Sundays on the riverbanks, along the river Gwenfro in Queensway and Caia Park.
For anyone interested in joining the group, its free, anyone can join, you can pick up bin bags and equipment from DSL mobility on the Holt Road and the Keep Wales Tidy hubs, located around Wrexham, such as Caia Park Partnership, Plas Madoc and Alyn Waters.
We were so impressed with Kelly’s actions during lockdown, setting up this project which is having a positive impact on people’s lives, the environment, and its wildlife.
“We have picked 22465 bags since Feb 2021. This is up to the end of February this year.
We have about 45-50 people actively picking each month at the moment either in the Sunday group picks or by themselves. The page has 2286 members currently.
We have picked 389 bags from the green spaces within Caia Park during the past year.”