Grantham RiverCare writes about 20th anniversary

We have cleaned up so much in town over the last 20 years, writes Ian Simmons and David Martin, co-leads of Grantham RiverCare.

For those of you who have been hiding under a rock, unaware of momentous happenings around the globe, you may have missed perhaps the most notable event of the year.

No, not whatever it is the Americans are doing to themselves currently or even the news coming from ‘Strictly…’, but that Grantham RiverCare has reached the ripe old age of 20!

A recent celebration of this fact was held in the Grantham Bowling Club’s Pavilion in Wyndham Park.

Many supporters, old, new and current, were present to hear nice things said about the nice people who volunteer selflessly.

We would like to thank those members of the public who have acknowledged and empathised with the work we do, keeping our stretch of the River Witham - and surrounding streets - as clean as we can.

With over 140 clean ups over the years, we can sadly say that we have seen (almost) everything dumped in the river.

From a fridge freezer, a camping trailer, garden furniture, random rides on toys and so on.

The one ever present - and would be great if it was only one - is the ubiquitous cigarette butt.

Taking up to 15 years to degrade, they are full of microplastics, leaching poisons trapped in the filter fibres into the river, these seem to be a never ending plague on our streets.

Ironically, as the number of people still able to afford to smoke (fun fact - an individual cigarette now costs around 70 pence), the latest problem is that of vapes and vaping.

We have collected over 1,500 vaping items this year already, exceeding the 1,000 we found last year.

With stricter Government regulations surrounding the sale and use of this form of addiction, we hope that this type of littering has seen its peak.

It would seem that our activities are having a positive impact on our town. We were joined by 35 volunteers of all ages recently, with some new joining us for the first time.

News of our efforts are spreading through this column and presentations to various groups around town.

Thanks should be shared to all our volunteers - past, present and future - and to those who can’t make it out, but support us in other ways.

It would be naive to think that in twenty years we will still be lamenting the state of our roads and rivers, but it may be that we will…