Member Article

Charity Clean-Up Highlights Plastic Pollution in River Thames

PLASTIC pollution in the river Thames has been laid bare through a new clean-up initiative.

This week a team from charity Thames21 and leading domestic cleaning firm Fantastic Services set to work trying to remove some of the detritus from London’s famous waterway.

And after targeting a relatively small stretch of bank between the Royal Festival Hall and Southwark Bridge - roughly a mile - over the course of two and a half hours, their collection bags were full to bursting.

Fantastic Services’ Angie Prentice, who helped to manage the project, says she was horrified to see the impact discarded plastics were having on the shoreline.

She said: “We found countless plastic straws, bottle tops and wet wipes. To find so much in such a relatively short stretch of riverbank was truly eye opening.

“And these wet wipes in particular can be really harmful to the environment.

“Wet wipes introduce microfibres and chemicals into the river system and this is then ingested by all animals living within, and by, our waterways.

“Wet wipes also smother the foreshore, making it harder for wading birds to feed at low tide and fish to feed at high tide.

“And it was clear for us to see how the water environment can be impacted.

“However, all is not lost.

“Our clean-up team enjoyed a rare sighting of a cormorant just as we were beginning the clean up. It was lovely to see, and also an indicator that there are lots of fish in the Thames, which in turn means that clean-up operations like this are succeeding.”

Alongside discarded plastics, the Fantastic Services team also found animal bones - from the days when slaughtered sheep carcasses were tossed into the Thames - as well as a wallet, complete with credit cards, and several mobile phones.

Meanwhile Angie says the Thames21 link-up is particularly important to her team.

She explained: “I’m a qualified Dive Master and I’ve worked on a couple of marine conservation projects around the world but wanted to do something closer to home.

“At Fantastic Services we deliver cleaning and property maintenance services to both the domestic and commercial sectors.

“And we’re based at London Bridge - right on The Thames - so as a company, we wanted to extend our cleaning services to the Thames21 initiative, both participating and volunteering for their Thames clean up projects but also in supporting the charity with our waste removal service, too.”

In a two-year project, Thames 21 collected nearly 10,000 wet wipes from just one location on the riverside.

Meanwhile Thames Water removes 30 tonnes of unflushable material - including nappies and wet wipes - each and every day from just one of its sites.

Unflushables also combine with fat, forming local sewer blockages and ‘fatbergs’, costing millions of pounds each year to remove.

Lawrence Beale Collins, Corporate Partnerships Officer for Thames21, said: “We are delighted to have worked with Fantastic Services on this clean-up initiative, and admire the amount of commitment its team put in.

“The presence of so many wet wipes along certain sections of the Thames foreshore means that the riverbank landscape is changing shape and as more and more rubbish is also attracted to these areas, by getting trapped and snagged, this shape change is more noticeable.

“Our success cannot be gauged until we are rid of these things and people stop flushing them down their toilets.

“We have seen a steady climb in volunteer numbers throughout the Thames area, which we welcome.

“We would also like more people to train with us, so that they can lead their own groups and we are always looking to train more citizen scientists.”

** Thames21 connects people with rivers by putting healthy rivers back at the heart of everyday life. We improve and restore rivers, educate and empower the community and campaign for positive change for the good of people and the environment.

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