When one of the first things you find on a litter pick is a loo seat you know it's going to be an interesting one. Sure enough, we could have filled our sacks at least 10 times over with the amount of rubbish dumped along the sides of the Lye Valley SSSI. It's clearly a favourite dumping ground, with a whole loo, bike frames, football boots, an umbrella, electric blanket, CD player, paint tins, broken glass, oilcans, hub caps, and a steam cleaner all part of our haul. Of course, there were also the usual suspects of food and drink wrappers too. Usually litter picking is quite a satisfying task. It was great to see the area looking better after our work, but really very sad to see that such a special place is treated with so little respect.

Congratulations on reaching the 10 Good Deed milestone Axelle!

The Lye Valley is a very rare environment: a wet area, fed by lime-rich springs along the valley walls. It is home to many unusual plants and is also abundant in wildlife. The importance of this area has led to the designation of two Sites of Special Scientific Interest, the North and South Fens, which are protected by national legislation. You can find out more about Lye Valley here.

The Friends of Lye Valley have weekly work parties tackling conservation and maintenance tasks, but there are areas along the edges of the valley which are hot-spots for litter and tipping and they have not been able to tackle the problem with the numbers of helpers available to them. A month or so ago we received an SOS call from the Friends of Lye Valley requesting that we help them out by undertaking a litter picking blitz along the sides of the valley. The areas in question are earmarked for habitat improvement later in the year, and so it was becoming urgent to clear up the worst of the litter before the vegetation got too high.

Although it can be icky, a litter pick is a strangely satisfying activity, so we're always happy to arrange a litter picking flash mob!

Divide and conquer is our USP at the moment, so we split into 3 teams heading off in different directions:

• Mark took half-a-dozen GoodGymers around the streets surrounding the valley. Key finds included a washing line, cat collar, unidentified metal objects, and a toy taxi. Conversation topics - Barbados or Costa Rica for our holidays now that we have an in-house flight team?
  
• Bethan and Sarah took another team along the board walk, through the stretch of woods, and back through the Churchill Hospital site. Some Extreme Plogging was undertaken - balancing a bit precariously to fish litter out of the stream and watching out for enthusiastic golfers as they skirted the edge of the golf course (GoodGym Oxford are going to start a golf-ball reselling business next).
  
• The final team scrambled up the valley sides to the grot spot. A lot of items had been thrown over into the valley from the road - sofa cushions, pillows, a broom, an old TV, a tennis racket, a massive protein powder tub. Definitely plenty of options for the Too Big to Bag and Very Random Item squares on our Litter Pick Bingo cards. Alongside the bulky trash there were plenty of the usual suspects such as cans, bottles, masks, crisp packets, and this may qualify as one of the smelliest litter picks EVER thanks to dozens of dog poo bags. Since you're never done on a GoodGym litter pick until you've found underwear we're happy to report 3 pairs of men's pants (one Ralph Lauren pair, fancy) and one bra. In fact, there was nearly a full outfit once you added in the jacket and shorts we fished out of the undergrowth.
  

If you haven't quite had your fill of litter picking yet this spring Ben will be leading a litter pick along Binsey Lane in West Oxford on 5th June. You can sign up here. It's technically part of the OxClean Spring Clean, but really it's all about replenishing our stock of golf balls.

Welcome Rebecca and Vanessa - glad you could join us for the first time!

See here for more info on the Aston Eyot Badger vaccination program which we briefly discussed at the end of the litter pick.