Local Litter Pickers Assemble for Earth Day 2024
For the second year running, The Paddington Partnership marked Earth Day with a large-scale canal clean-up event. Teams from nine local companies joined forces to remove a huge amount of litter from the canal, including some peculiar finds such as a dog toy, doll, mop and even a painting.
Earth Day is an annual event celebrated globally, recognising the importance of environmental protection. The theme for 2024 is Planet Vs Plastics, a fitting focus for our day removing litter and plastic pollution from Regent’s and Grand Union Canals.
72 colleagues from Paddington Central, Brockton Everlast, Visa, Convatec, Derwent London, Equinor, DEFRA, Heathrow Express and IQVIA set sail from Paddington Basin armed with litter pickers, bin bags and fetching rubber gloves as they worked to remove as much litter as possible from the water. Volunteers travelled by GoBoat – electric powered, self-drive vehicles that gave each group a unique view of Paddington Basin and beyond from the water.
Our eco helpers returned to dry land with a total of 29 bags of rubbish removed from the water, making our local waterways a cleaner, safer space for the community to enjoy and for local wildfowl to thrive. Between them, volunteers contributed 108 hours of their time to improving the environment here in Paddington.
Paddington teams will join us throughout the summer for environmental volunteering activities – litter picking along the canal, clearing and maintaining gardens and helping out at school grounds. If you have been inspired by the wonderful work of our volunteers, please do not hesitate to contact our Community Team to see how you can get involved.