Haven't seen this topic discussed ...

It is common in and around urban areas to see shopping trolleys, bicycles, car tyres and other human "rubbish" dumped into a river. This offends our sensibilities and we want to remove it to make our river look cared for. Often in these same situations, there may be insufficient in-stream or low-level cover.

A case in point: on a recent riverbank clear-up, a Derbys CC wildlife ranger and I carefully took a 20 foot length of corrugated plastic out of the branches of a tree (where it had been left by the winter floods): it was trailing in the river. Once we got it onto land we saw it was covered in caseless caddis. Dilemma! If we throw it on the skip we kill thousands of invertebrates and deny our fishes their feast; if we leave it it looks a mess. We chose to put it back, but we will have another look at the next clear-up in Jul/Aug and re-assess.

My thesis: in these situations shopping trolleys and other "rubbish" can provide essential in-stream cover: they will provide shelter from floods, and cover against aerial predators. Unless we plan to replace the shopping trolleys with equivalent in-stream cover, we should leave well alone, and perhaps even install signs which say something like: "This shopping trolley intentionally left in the river" to indicate that someone is caring for the river.

Please discuss

Andrew

PS Plainly fridges, car batteries and so on should be removed.

As we are about to restore our local river here is a short list of things we'll move; Batteries, aerosols, footballs, Propane bottles, Barrels marked Toxic, fridges and paint tins.

Things we might not move; Car seats, kitchen units, metal storage boxs if submerged and not resting on the surface. If you're looking for funding of some sort, it would look better to move eyesores like shopping trolleys for the future good of the river as a whole

In principle I couldn't agree more with you

Great thread aswell, hope many take part

Mick

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"I will give him seven feet of English ground, or as much more as he may be taller than other men"
http://derbyshireonthefly.blogspot.com/

Hi guys

A little update for some Rivers Trust work I'm doing at the moment on this very subject.

It would seem that the supermarkets are open to me doing a presentation for future funding etc.

We now have a system being set up(going already) for a central call to be made for removal of 'trolleys' from rivers/waterways (ALL supermarkets subscribing making this FREE).

I too have had a dilemma on the clean up of plastic front but in a different way.....It would seem that whilst a clean up gets great community spirit and satisfaction... it is short lived until the next flood. Meaning the bigger problem is how to stop the littering in the first place.

Still...one step begins a journey of a thousand miles

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Two things to have in life - A good bed and a good pair of boots -and if you aren't in one you should be in t'other

This is weird. I am working on a poster at the moment on this very thing. I don't feel it is finished yet, it is missing something, but here is a smaller picture, the original is 24x36 inches

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Sandy
Carried it in full, then carry it out empty.

S,
When it is done, please let us know on the main board as many of us could use it
Regards
Rob

Will do. It is on hold at the moment as I keep looking at it and feel it needs something else but I'm not sure what I have a few ideas to try so it shouldn't be long.

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Don't worry, be happy.
Sandy
Carried it in full, then carry it out empty.

This is a interesting thread, and problematic. If non-natural articles are left in the river won't it end up like those back lanes in the countryside that get targetted by Fly-tippers.........once one does it then all the rest join in?

The quote above leads me to one question........what do you attach the sign to????

Fishcake's point is a good one. Speaking as someone who works in the waste management industry, nothing attracts rubbish like rubbish and with landfill taxes having been hiked dramatically this year and set to rise year on year, the risks of fly tipping get greater. Some reasonably discreet "foreign bodies" could probably be left if they are having a beneficial effect but large eyesores such as trolleys, prams etc are best removed I would say, both for visual reasons and because they will send out a message that fly tipping is tolerated (I know that many of these things arrive thanks to natural causes, ie floods, but people have a habit of adding to them!)

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Don't get me going on fly tipping........tooo late why don't the government allow as much access as you like to waste sites. FREE OF CHARGE. It would save MILLIONS in fly tip clearance.


Back now

I've studied the opening thread now several times and been applying the thesis to our local PIUR and came to the conclusion that the post industrial part is now as much a part of the river as if it were a natural evolution.
By this, I'm talking about the deeply embedded 'stuff' that is indeed now really a habitat (I can't believe I'm saying this).....So its down to the more modern stuff and how not to get it there in the first place.

As fishermen we should all be aware and actively involved in habitat management.

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Two things to have in life - A good bed and a good pair of boots -and if you aren't in one you should be in t'other

Nothing comes for free. The waste sites it has to go to cost even more millions to set up, so they either have to be paid for via a gate fee or public subsidy (ie tax), but either way it has to be paid for. We could have free sites but most people want their taxes cut, not increased. Whats needed to combat flytipping is effective enforcement.

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