Wednesday 17 March 2010

Litter Love






A lot of litter – not a lot of love

On Friday 12th February, in the run-up to Valentines Day, Litter Love offered people the opportunity to find their perfect ‘carbon’ date. 15 student volunteers litter picked along Colum road and Cathays collecting over 17 bags of rubbish, nine filled with recyclables and eight general waste.

Organised by Kieran McCann, Student Liaison Officer in collaboration with Tidy Towns the event included the first ever speed dating litter pick.

Volunteers who took part in the speed dating litter pick asked their dates a series of questions to find out who was their perfect carbon date. If their prospective date answered mostly A, B, C or D they were given the carbon status:

A - Green god/goddess
B - Eco-warrior in training
C - Polluter
D - Carbon craver

Potential dates were matched on their compatibility score and pledged to reduce their carbon footprint by 10% in 2010. Example questions included:

Your car is….?

a. Car what car, it’s called a bike

b. Traded in and now disguised as a bus

c. My pride and joy and a little run around

d. Over there jump in it’s the BMW parked there


When offered a plastic bag do you?

a. Pull out your bag-for-life and skip away

b. Take one but re-use it next time

c. Use it and throw it away

d. Ask for another and double bag your goods


You need a new outfit for our date do you?

a. Re-fashion and stitch something from old clothes

b. Hit the charity shops and swap shops

c. Turn to the high street for your fix

d. Go designer darling with added fur


Indeg Jones, Tidy Towns Officer, said: “It was a great day. Everyone got into the spirit of it and although nobody found love we found plenty of litter.”

Cardiff Council’s Student Liaison Officer, Kieran McCann said: “Thank you to all the volunteers and their enthusiasm for litter love, although there was sadly no potential future litter love marriages or rubbish romances I’m glad everyone enjoyed the novelty of the day. We contributed to cleaning up our community and encouraged people to think about climate change in a unique way.”

Zain Khan a student volunteer who participated on the day said: “It was unbelievable how much litter we collected. The whole experience was fun but the best part was people passing by giving us a thumbs-up and acknowledging our work to help clean up Cathays.”