River Worth blog - River Worth Friends

Why I litter pick - John Tickner and Chris Tribe

18/6/2021

In last week's blog we heard from Sue Patchett why she is a regular litter picker, in this one we hear from her side kicks John Tickner and Chris Tribe.

John worked hard to retrieve this trolley which was embedded in the river silt.

John Tickner:

"The number of bags of rubbish I have personally filled in the last 12 months is certainly approaching, if it has not already exceeded, three figures, but I still don’t really consider myself a ‘litter picker’".

"Going into retirement gave me the opportunity to spend more time exploring and photographing my local River Worth, and I became fascinated by its history and its wildlife. So when I saw a proposal to start a ‘Friends of’ group I went along, pleased for the chance to meet up with like-minded individuals".

That's John in the river.

Roles reversed - John at the top.

"Anyone taking an interest in the river will quickly learn that the era of industrial pollution is long past and the water quality of the Worth is now good, better I am assured than the River Aire itself, in to which it flows. It just doesn’t look good on account of all the rubbish and fly tipping that people continue to dump into it. Addressing this has been one of the main tasks undertaken by RWF, and I very quickly accepted that if I wanted to see the river cleaned up, then I had better get stuck in and show willing myself. Whether you call this litter picking or not I don’t know, for as well as litter this has involved hauling out all sorts of other rubbish from shopping trolleys to motor bikes and even a smashed up wardrobe. It can be soul-destroying seeing some of the

rubbish that gets dumped, but it's rewarding to be able to stand back afterwards and admire a cleaned up stretch of riverbank. We live in hope that seeing a cleaner river will encourage more folk to appreciate it and treat it with respect."

John with something disgusting he has pulled from the river!

Finally why does Chris Tribe do it:

"My interest in the river came about because as a fly fisherman I fish it regularly and I was impressed at how the river in Keighley is a corridor of nature running through an otherwise urban landscape. I regularly see Dippers, Wagtails, Kingfishers and other wildlife and of course the Brown Trout and Grayling are beautiful. So I’m proud of the Worth but the litter, business debris and fly tipping along it’s banks sometimes make it look like a rubbish tip. I think the river and the people of Keighley deserve more. That’s one reason I turn out regularly to litter pick".

Chris fishing a beautiful stretch of river close to the centre of keighley.

"As john said some of what we do can’t really be classed as “litter picking”, when we are removing large items from the river and even when stripping wet wipes and sanitary towels from the brambles dangling in the river I tend to think of it more as river clearance. I particularly like this work, partly because I like being in the river but also because I know that most items in the river will eventually end up in the sea".

"Plastic pollution of our seas is at catastrophic levels. Between 4.8 to 12.7 million tonnes of plastic enter our oceans per year (Science Journal 2010) and it is estimated that between 1.5 to 2.4 million tonnes originate from rivers (Ocean cleanup 2019). This plastic won’t just go away it will hang around in the oceans for perhaps thousands of years, degrading into smaller and smaller particles, who know what the long term effect will be.
Working on the green principle of “Think globally, act locally” it seems the right thing to do to stop the plastic in our river getting any further downstream.

That's why I litter pick".

If we don't get it, next stop North Sea. (You can just see John at the back).

If you would like to be part of making the river and Keighley a better place please contact River Worth Friends

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Why I litter pick - John Tickner and Chris Tribe

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