A quick walk around the swimming lake just around the corner after work. Underwater: Not much—a cup, a few fishing lures and hooks, and something that looks like it used to be a broken candy machine (how did something like that end up in a swimming lake?).

Interesting: Invasive zebra mussels have settled on the vending machine.

Above water: The usual assortment of litter from recreational activities.

Highlights here: A keychain (someone at the nearby sailing club probably got in trouble over this at some point, but it’s been lying there for a while and is rusted) and a geocache (I wouldn’t normally pick one up, but the note was already torn up and it was lying in a pile of trash that had washed ashore)

The little joys of a detrashers's daily life: bottle deposits.

Okay, let's not kid ourselves: Given the cost-benefit ratio, there's really no question of it being “worth it.” Still, it's always nice to see that DeTrashing funds at least one new trash picker every few months.

A quick litter cleanup along a country road on Sunday. I’d been there once before a year ago and wanted to find out if it was “worth it” or how quickly new trash shows up: Fortunately, I had to walk a long way to fill my bucket, so it’s clearly possible to collect trash faster than some litterbugs can throw it away.

Fun fact: Some drunk is apparently trying to hit the speed camera on the side of the road with his liquor bottles while driving. At least half a dozen relatively new bottles are lying around in the area.

Also going for a trash walk after Halloween is a great way to find all the errant wrappers

Next step is to figure out how to secure it to my belt or the bucket I use!

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/9407848

More than 480,000 items of litter removed from UK beaches in nationwide survey

More than 480,000 items of litter were removed from UK beaches in 2023 as part of a nationwide survey.

In the Marine Conservation Society’s (MCS) annual beach clean, 14,721 volunteers picked up rubbish from their local beaches and recorded the number of items found within a 100m stretch.

Publishing its annual State of our Beaches report on Wednesday, the charity said half of all litter collected came from public sources – either dumped, blown or washed on to beaches.

It works well right now because our puppy still wants to sniff everything possible so I have more time to snag stuff. Trying to keep the park by our house a bit more trash free!