A Crac-key-ing Amount of Litter

4 eager GoodGymers ran to North Acton Station after Acton Junior parkrun, where they'd been volunteering in the morning. Their run to the station had taken in Acton Park and some lovely Acton streets with large Victorian housing, followed by a less desirable stretch along the A40.

We'd been here 3 months ago when the area outside the station looked clean. Despite that, we managed to fill 5 bags with litter that was hiding in the bushes. This time around, we could see litter dotted around without even diving into the bushes.

We split into teams of 2 to tackle the problem, Kash with Joanna and Pippa with Sevan. Little did we know up front that each team had a member who liked to get big wins and a second member who loved to focus on details. In other words, one person covered a lot of area quickly and the other - if left alone - would try and collect every single cigarette butt and bottle cap in sight. By complete chance, they were well balanced teams.

After an hour we'd collected 3 bags, mostly filled with drinks containers and food packaging. Thankfully there weren't as many cans as bottle as there were 3 months ago, so we are having an impact. We also had members of the public thank us for our efforts, which was really encouraging.

Notable findings from our litter pick were:

• A Monzo card 💳

• A set of keys 🔑

• A comb and disposable razor 🪒

• A Kinder Egg plastic shell and part of a toy 🥚

• 4 empty blister packs of painkillers 💊💊💊💊

No doubt, we'll be back again soon to tidy up this corner of Acton!