Alas poor litter picker...

My very cheap litter picker stopped working this morning - some link between the spring-loaded handle and the claw has unlinked. Alas, that means more plastic waste!

To be fair I have used it pretty regularly for almost a year.

No, no, I'm not litter picking today

I'll just take a walk down to the Welland, and maybe come back tomorrow...but the verges have been cut and there is a bit of trash! Not as much as I have seen before, and I'm really not going looking - I'm only wearing sandals, and i haven't brought my picker or a bag. So some things were definitely out of reach.

I end up with several flattened drinks cans and one or two shredded ones, a couple of flattened plastic bottles and a few crisp packets, plus one broken Budweiser bottle and one that's intact. All put in the litter bin, rather than carried home to sort.

There is a spot near the bridge where comfrey was in flower, attracting several bees. I also saw damsel flies, and a small tortoiseshell butterfly. It flew away when a car drove by, so no photo today.

Litter picking and beauty 2 - a small success!

I posted a pic of the notice and the rubbish on Facebook. Within the hour someone told me the rubbish had gone. 

Well done, East Northants - although I'm sure it wasn't my post that did it this time.

I went and collected the two bags from further down the road, so all in all a good morning's work!

Litter picking and beauty

It's still dry - the outdoors beckons. Time to litter pick a local roadside!

This is a lay-by which I have reported several times over the last year. I think East Northants Council may be getting the message. I hope it is more than a token gesture!

Apart from that eyesore, I collected a carrier bag full of stuff like food wrappers, wet wipes, squashed cans, plastic bottle tops and general gunk. And another one full of stuff that can be recycled, I hope.

The inevitable escaped helium balloon!

These two bags full of garbage were further along the road.

On the positive side, the verges are full of wild flowers, the birds sing, and I heard the hoot of a distant train.

There no plastic bottles in the village pond today!

 Water lilies are beginning to bloom.