How many times have you walked through a park and seen a pond polluted with plastic, cans bobbing in a canal, or waste bags floating in water? Although to people this may just be an eye-sore and aesthetic issue, to much of the wildlife in our countryside and towns this is a deadly problem. However, a dedicated group of paddlers are striving to reverse the polluting effects of human life and help to clean up our rivers.

With Earth Day celebrated on Friday 22nd of April, now is a good time to learn about and be inspired by environmental aid projects across the UK. A fantastic example of one of these amazing efforts is the River Clean Up project, which is unique because of how volunteers pick up rubbish: from kayaks, open canoes, and paddleboards. Being on the water allows them to reach more places, especially those which are only accessible from the water such as opposite river banks or tree branches. This year, the project is run by Clear Access Clear Waters under the name The Big Paddle Cleanup and runs for a week between the 4th and 12th of June.

Andy Garlick, from Meridian Canoe Club, won the British Canoeing Clear Access Clear Waters Award in 2018 for his work with the Medway River Clean Up. He organised the six canoeing clubs taking part, allocating volunteers, who were travelling both by boat and on foot, where riverside footpaths were available, a section of the total 32km covered by the event. He also coordinated the vast amount of equipment required for the event to take place safely, ranging from basic paddling gear such as helmets and buoyancy aids, to hygiene equipment as safety measures for the litter, including gloves, pickers, and innumerable bin bags.

Garlick explains the many hazards to animals that plastic pollution can bring, stating that “Litter is a big problem for the wildlife (and many plants) because it inhibits their nesting sites, mimics some of their foodstuffs, and can be toxic if ingested”. There are many cases of birds mistaking plastic bags or multipack can nets for fish and accidentally eating them, which can not only be poisonous but also ends up getting trapped in their stomachs or intestines, preventing other food from being digested.

Fortunately, the River Clean Up has helped to free the environment and ecosystems surrounding waterways immensely. The Environmental Agency has revealed that “almost 1500 kilos of rubbish” have been removed from rivers as part of the project, which “has had a significant improvement of the water quality and of course the appearance of the river banks”. Part of this success has been due to the timing of the Clean Up, which usually occurs annually near Easter, as being “in spring after the winter floods” means that rubbish is in more obvious and accessible places and allows paddlers to “remove the maximum amount from both the river and the banks”.

In terms of the actual rubbish found, Garlick comments that “The largest volume of litter is drink containers, either bottles, cans, or cartons. This is followed by food packaging, and a long way behind is general rubbish like tyres, supermarket trolleys, paint cans, agricultural waste plastics (fertiliser bags etc)”. Although most of this rubbish is made of plastic, which can have particularly severe impacts on wildlife due to its ability to break down into nearly undetectable microplastic, some more unusual items have been found: “We found many personal items, which would have been sorely missed, like engraved cigarette cases, also items of very personal clothing, traffic cones, an Easter egg which was almost a year beyond its best before date, a bicycle frame, lots of fishing tackle”.

The River Clean Up campaign has been greatly disrupted by the COVID pandemic. Andy Garlick agrees that “Litter did get worse in lockdown for a number of reasons”, explaining that “volunteer clean [sic] were less common due to both regulations about meeting up, and the risk assessment became very onerous on organisers to minimise Covid transmission… People used rivers to get their exercise and did not seem to be as careful about litter disposal as they had previously… The Environment Agency were unwilling to dispose of large quantities of rubbish (which means the organisers of a clean-up have to pay themselves)”.

Thankfully, with the pandemic now clearing up and with Covid regulations becoming less strict, many more people can help clean up our environment. Garlick suggests that “The best way to clean up litter is to prevent it being dropped in the first place, however this is question of education and changing people’s habits, not easy to achieve”. This is very much a long-term solution, although with increasing pollution levels and even global warming people should definitely take a few minutes to learn about eco-activism and environmentalism. Some more short-term solutions include “The provision of sufficient litter bins can help but unless emptied regularly they can also be a problem when full to overflowing”, and as “a lot of litter is disposable plastics, making bottles returnable would encourage recycling”.

As people are responsible for polluting the environment, everyone should do their part to reduce and hopefully reverse the effects of plastic waste. Garlick warns that “The highest volumes of rubbish closest to human habitation. On the Medway the stretches through Tonbridge and Maidstone are far and away worse than the rural banks in between. There are also lots of drink cans near anglers’ pitches along the river”.

With over 2.1 million people paddling at least once a year according to Clear Access Clear Water, Garlick is eager to continue raising awareness about the Big Paddle Clean Up both within the paddle sports community and with newcomers and other environmentalists. To boost media coverage of the 2018 event for which he received the British Canoeing Clear Access Clear Waters Award, Garlick invited BBC South East to report on the event. He aims to continue spreading information, saying “Raising awareness is obviously vital, but quite tricky to do effectively. High profile personalities like David Attenborough help with Mass media exposure, but in order to change human behaviour will require a full re-education programme, perhaps starting in schools so the new generations coming through are aware of the harm littering does both to the local environment and the whole planet”.

The impacts of plastic pollution in waterways are clearly extremely negative for the wildlife that lives in waterways and the surrounding areas. The only way to combat an issue that occurs on such a colossal scale is at its source: with people. There are only a few changes that everyone should make to avoid ruining ecosystems and harming animals, which although are very simple and require almost no effort to make, can save lives and help to combat an international crisis.