Campaigners take more than 70 bags of litter in one day in a Hartlepool clean-up blitz

And now, the members of the Big Town Tidy Up are considering where to target next after making a massive difference to the Marina.

Thirty five people from the Big Town Tidy Up came along to help the crackdown on litter on Sunday, September 6. They were joined by four members of the Marina’s own staff.

The event was a new initiative in which dozens of them turn up en masse in an area of Hartlepool and spend a day tackling litter.

They want to hit every ward in Hartlepool within a year and had already blitzed three parts of town since the start of summer.

Their crackdown in the Burn Valley, De Brus and Headland areas saw around 100 bags of litter collected, and up to 30 people had been turning out to join in the mass clean-up each time.

But the Marina clean-up was the biggest yet and came just days after the Hartlepool Mail told of the plans.

Group founder Jason Bland said: “There were 35 members and four Marina staff involved.”

He said a ‘huge thank you to every single volunteer giving your time to help make our Marina so tidy!.An amazing total of bags collected today.”

The group is now considering which part of town to choose next for a mass clean-up.

We first revealed the efforts of the Big Town Tidy Up group in June this year when we told how its membership had reached 1,000 people.

Since then, the group has grown to 1,300 members and one of the group’s founders Jason Bland said: “People see it as a good way of getting out and getting exercise, and clearing their head. It is therapeutic.

As well as the ward cleans, Big Town Tidy Up members are encouraged to litter pick in their own neighbourhoods as often as they like.

By June, members had taken 4,000 bags of other people’s rubbish off the streets, including a guitar, false teeth, plastic banana skin and laughing gas canisters.

To find out how to join the group visit Big Town Tidy Up on Facebook.

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