Fireworks pulled from River Witham in Grantham during clean-up

Grantham RiverCare marked their 17th anniversary at the weekend with their 109th clean-up.

Dedicated volunteers donned waders and waterproof clothing to pull a whole range of items from the River Witham at Wyndham Park on Saturday morning.

Their latest haul included a zimmer frame, washing line, an office chair, numerous football and tennis balls and the obligatory traffic cones. They also recovered a few fireworks this time around too.

Ian Simmons, of Grantham Rivercare, said: “It’s that time of year again and a couple of ‘industrial’ sized fireworks were also recovered, which poses the question, where are the contents? Well, what goes up must come down so our guess is polluting the river somewhere.”

The torrential rain and wind on the day failed to dampen the spirits of the dedicated group of volunteers.

Ian added: Our motto that “it never rains on a RiverCare day” was proven optimistic as we all got caught in a huge deluge halfway through the morning.

The driest person was our man Gary and he spent the morning wading upstream.”

There was some positive news though with levels of litter down on previous months.

RiverCare BeachCare (East Anglia) is a Keep Britain Tidy project funded in our region by Anglian Water. Currently supporting 50 local community groups to litter pick, undertake citizen science projects and act as guardians of their local watercourse or beach.

For more information on Grantham RiverCare, contact Ian Simmons on 07950 000928 or David Martin on 07739 864490, or search for ‘RiverCare Grantham’ on Facebook.