Sidlesham Litter Pickers – the results of litter picking around my village in West Sussex, UK Conference for Global Transformation 2021, Landmark Education – Measuring Accomplishment by Gayle Palmer My global commitment: To tread lightly on the Earth and reduce the environmental load in my local community. Sidlesham is the largest Parish in West Sussex and wholly rural 17.53 km2 (6.77 sq mi). It is on the Manhood Peninsula, five kilometres (3 miles) south of Chichester in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It has a population of under 2,000 in just 448 households. It has one main road going through it from Chichester to the small town of Selsey and various small lanes which cross the Peninsula. Primarily agricultural, it also has a large horticultural use and it bounded by two harbours (both SSSI’s, AONB’s (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) and of National importance for their flora and fauna). In 46AD the Romans landed in Pagham Harbour and the Saxon Aella landed along the Keynor rife near the site of the present village school in 477AD. St Wilfred is considered to have landed in Pagham Harbour at Church Norton. Street End Lane follows the line of a Roman Road and there are the remains of a Roman villa at Bird Pond. Sidlesham is recorded in the Domesday Book and the Normans built part of the present church in 1200AD. https://www.sidlesham.org/about/sidlesham-history/ I began litter picking in 2017 after my standard poodle had several cut paws, in March 2018 I started to measure what I collected as the amounts were shocking! To keep track I started the Facebook group #SidleshamLitterPickers. In more recent years I have encouraged others to litter pick too and there are now 6 of us in the village although most do not record their Sidlesham Litter Pickers – the results of litter picking around my village in West Sussex, UK Conference for Global Transformation 2021, Landmark Education – Measuring Accomplishment by Gayle Palmer collections. I do also litter pick on the beaches nearby. I have been separating out recyclable litter from the waste, and further separating out aluminium cans to then be sold off, the money going to the local Hospice. (Note: The purple bags stacked up only contain aluminium cans and the builders sack!) The artwork I have produced reflects the three very different sources and types of litter in the village: The roads, the beaches and harbours and the countryside / fields. They each illustrate the most common findings in each location. The roads: The amount of cans and plastic bottles, sandwich cartons and plastic bags is depressing given that much of the village is so rural and the one main road goes between the town of Selsey (a dead end) and the City of Chichester – both about 3-4 miles away. Costa coffee, KFC, beer, Lucozade, Pepsi and Coke, Red Bull and Monster cans have increased in the last year – possibly because of folks’ state of mental health with Covid. Alcohol and sugar-based and unnatural chemical-containing drinks abound. Plastic bottles – milk, water, soda drinks and juice cartons are wilfully thrown from cars along with glass bottles, often landing in the ditches and ponds – which ultimately go into the sea. The cans to bottles ratio is nearly 50:50. The beaches and harbours: Plastic, plastic, plastic! Rope, bottles, micro-plastics in the water, in the sand and shingles along with larger items – carbon-fibre from boats, sheets of plastic and plastic bags. Occasionally there is wood, metal containers and the odd beaten-up drinks can. Some of the litter comes from the commercial fishing fleet of small boats based at Selsey – including crab and lobster pots. Some from other commercial shipping but especially during the Summer months much gets into the water from beach picnics etc. The harbours in particular are important feeding grounds for migrating birds and estuarine species. There are porpoises, dolphins, seals and whales in the local seas and fabulous fish life due to rare kelp beds just off the shore. Even with protection the amount of marine litter kills many young animals as their parents feed them the plastic or they get caught up in the fishing twine and other waste. Sidlesham Litter Pickers – the results of litter picking around my village in West Sussex, UK Conference for Global Transformation 2021, Landmark Education – Measuring Accomplishment by Gayle Palmer The fields: The Parish is low-lying, grade one agricultural land, mainly clay with some flints. High light intensity levels, accentuated by the light which bounces off the English Channel mean it grows everything abundantly! In addition with the land being very flat, there are large areas of greenhouses and horticulture vs just agriculture. Wheat, barley, grass for silage are common crops and in more recent years sweetcorn, courgettes and French beans are grown and harvested commercially for the supermarkets. The courgettes require hand cutting into baskets, with labels etc. More plastic is used to warm the soil and keep soil splash off them. Some plastic bio-degrades, much/most doesn’t. The crop pickers come with their plastic water bottles, chocolate wrappers, tin foil and sandwich cartons – it doesn’t all get taken away.. My concern that this gets repeated year on year, so that what were “clean fields” just 2 years ago. Then the land was rented to a large business, and it gets increasingly polluted due to the type of crops which are grown and the harvesting methods used. Sidlesham has a number of small horticulture businesses using large greenhouses and poly- tunnels for pot plants in particular – spring bedding and shrubs, though they used to grow tomatoes, celery and lettuce. Plastic plant pots, agricultural plastic sheets (usually black), bailing twine and plastic plant labels get blown over the fields and stuck into hedges or blown into the network of water run-off ditches. In three years I have collected 100kg off just 2 large fields abounding some horticulture areas! Black plastic is the most abundant finding. The Parish has many miles of public footpaths, more so around the harbours. These attract many locals and their dogs plus the dog poo bags! – which adorn the shrubs and trees as some owners can’t be bothered to put the waste into the convenient poo bins! Along with their dropped sweet wrappers and drinks receptacles it keeps the litter pickers busy! The beaches and footpaths also encourage ramblers and holidaymakers out for some exercise in outstandingly beautiful wild areas – that they then pollute with litter, seemingly with no thought! It is dispiriting especially as the harbours in particular are sites of international conservation interest. (RAMSAR, SSSI, AONB etc) Sidlesham Litter Pickers – the results of litter picking around my village in West Sussex, UK Conference for Global Transformation 2021, Landmark Education – Measuring Accomplishment by Gayle Palmer Measuring Accomplishment In March 2018 - Feb 19 I personally collected over 600kg of litter. I suspect that the previous year when I had been collecting but not measuring the result would have been far more as no-one had been litter picking to any great extent before this time. The volumes and weights that I was collecting were huge at times. In 2019-20 I collected 510kg. I was very encouraged – and could measure a sharp reduction in litter initially after Sir David Attenborough’s broadcast and his TV series on the state of the planet on the BBC in March 2019. Note: I was away for seven weeks from December 2019 to the 3rd week in January (7weeks) so these results may have been a misleading measurement. In 2020-21 By April 2020 to December I had already collected 405kg, despite months of being in lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic and many of the older generations NOT being away from their own homes and gardens at all. Sidlesham Litter Pickers – the results of litter picking around my village in West Sussex, UK Conference for Global Transformation 2021, Landmark Education – Measuring Accomplishment by Gayle Palmer The first lockdown from 23rd March 2020 to early June resulted in very few cars on the road, or people travelling at all. The subsequent two lockdowns have had more people about generally. I collected 747kg in total - and this is with 3 months of no collections due to holiday and the stats being collected one month early. So much for fewer people causing less litter during several lockdowns and fewer supposedly out on the roads! Here is a chart of what I have collected in the past 3 years, by Gayle Palmer alone. 1,822kg!! Sidlesham Litter Pickers – the results of litter picking around my village in West Sussex, UK Conference for Global Transformation 2021, Landmark Education – Measuring Accomplishment by Gayle Palmer Total litter (kg) per zone per year year road field harbour/beach Total 2018-19 358.1 45.2 170.4 573.7 2019-20 307.1 75.6 118.5 501.2 2020-21 498.7 48.0 169.7 716.4 All 3 years 1163.9 168.8 458.5 1791.2 I have picked enough to Build a car! As part of my cleaning up of the village and surrounding areas I have been separating the rubbish that I find into waste and recyclable and further separating up the recyclable into aluminium cans and glass / paper / plastic – we are lucky to have an amazing waste sorting centre nearby what can separate these up automatically and they can then be properly reused. By collecting up the cans I have been able to take them to the local metal recycling centre in Portsmouth.