November Update

November has been a very busy month with a great load of bulb planting. We’ve planted with Neighbourhood regeneration in Gabalfa and Hill View in Fairwater (no pictures on this one).

We’ve also done bulb planting with the Llanrumney Environment Group working with Llanrumney High and Glan-yr-Afon Primary School . Probably the most fun was night time planting in Fairwater with Waterhall Youth Centre.
All of these bulbs were made available from the Parks Department as part of Cardiff in Bloom.
We helped out Friends of Hailey Park earlier in the month with two non-native maple digging up days. These were very tiring but great fun and was with volunteers from Barclays. We also did a similar event in Bute Park with the Outreach Officer and another gang from Barclays.

It was a good month with Atlantic Wharf Residents’ Association this month, with their annual autumn litterpick.

closely followed by a Cardiff Friday Mornings Environmental Project where we helped to recover a stolen bike and some discarded electronic machinery

We then tipped off Cardiff Rivers Group to tackle the dock which pulled out a great amount of rubbish in only a few hours.
There is a nice story starting to develop over in Discovery Wood, where we have a local litter champion who has been litterpicking this wood for a couple of months. He is keen to try and set up a group down there, so we helped him with a few bigger tidy ups down there. All the waste was taken away by Parks Waste Services, who we are always grateful for their support. We have permission from the Parks Department to perform a little vegetation cutback, especially along the stream, put up an owl box, spruce up the Discovery Wood sign and hopefully events such as these will increase to help form a group who can help to take care of this little lovely woodland.

I helped perform a massive garden clean up with ISSA on a lovely Saturday towards the end of November. There were over 30 vols on the day and an amazing amount of work was undertaken.

Next 3 CFMEP Events Nov 18th & 25th and Dec 2nd.

Hello there, I am taking some flexi from Mon 21st to Thurs 24th Nov, but there will be a Cardiff Friday Mornings Environmental Project on Friday the 25th of November.

Fri 18th Nov: Discovery Wood clear up and woodland management.
Meet Car Park behind Discovery Inn on Clearwater Way.
Map: http://g.co/maps/vdgzk

Fri 25th Nov: Wern Gethin Lane, St. Mellons, mainly clear up.
Meet Play area off Coleford Drive. Parking is at ends of Heol Trostre or Heol Pwllyplaca.
Map: http://g.co/maps/kzkpn

Fri 2nd December: Clear up of Diana Memorial Gardens Ely.
This is overgrown with brambles, so a great morning spent swing long-handled edged slashing tools, some bowsawing and digging up of trees. This is in partnership with Ely's Growing Together(whom we've worked with several times before). It'll be a really big help to them to help sort this area out.

Please let me know if you are coming so I can bring enough tools;
Chris 07717 412 270 or chris.partridge@keepwalestidy.org

October Activities 2011

October initially rolled out like a spill over of Tidy Wales Week. Initially, LNRA hosted a follow up tidy up of Hawthorn Junior School. Much of this was buddleia from the walls and building. To prevent a repeat next year the cut stumps were painted with glyphosate. Over 40 bags were collected altogether here by the 9 vols including one of the local PCSOs. These were kindly taken away by a team from Street Cleansing.
here.

Hot on the tails of this was a trip down memory lane, to see an old favourite in St. Mellons, Wern Gethin Lane. Organised by Marcus of Communities First and with 13 children from Meadowlane Primary School we cleared 13 bags big bags of rubbish in less than 1 hour.

Over at the other end of Cardiff in deep Fairwater at Clos Ty Bronna, we completed one of the last parts of the Wild Weekend Grant. This was in partnership with the landowners Cadwyn Housing Association with Kath Williams. Previously we had installed, dormouse, bat and bird boxes in these woods and today was about planting bluebells. We talked about where they normally grow and chose suitable sites for them in the woods. Afterwards the 6-local children asked if we could do a litterpick as there was quite a lot of rubbish especially around the sheltered house Ty bronna itself. Luckily I had some equipment with me and we tidied the area mainly in the woods around the house. Most of this consisted various 2-litre bottles of soft and alcoholic drinks partially filled with yellow liquids. Many more similar bottles were on the inside fence of the house almost as if they had been thrown from the top floor windows of the house. We were wise enough not to empty these bottles, but the woods looked miles better after we collected our 2-bags worth.

The CFMEP went out on the 7th of October and the last time with volunteer stalwart Dave King before his sabbatical to Africa. Back in St. Mellons behind the Community and Education Centre. With just 3 people we collected 8 bags of rubbish, 3 recycling bags, a bike, golf club, 2 inhalers, a seat belt and the 6 ubiquitous trolleys from Tesco. We kindly removed the trolleys from the stream and deposited them back in front of the staff cafe windows.

Then it was time for my Summer Holiday, which I spent almost 2 weeks in the Peak District and Shropshire. I can’t bore you with that, but I’ll indulge in a photograph:

Upon return, there was the usual mass of Emails, the good, the bad and the spamy. First event back was over in Mill Rd. Park in Ely where we planted some bulbs with new Community Ranger Rich Roberts followed by scrub clearance with the nursery, communities first and a great load of enthusiastic kids. The kids really got stuck in and worked really hard. The best part is they used all the tools very responsibly and listened very carefully when we explained how and where to use them. Moreover, it was also half term so nobody was telling them they had to do this. Community Action at its best!!!

We then had a great event in Bute Park with 17 Regional Managers from Barclays. The main tasks were as follows:1. To clear the path of litter to which we collected 3 bags of rubbish.
2. To clear the pathway of encroaching vegetation, which we cleared using shears, loppers and slashers. 3. To remove some of the invasive and non-native sycamore and Norway maples. This continued from a little bit of this last year. Coppicing seems to make things worse with bushier growth and this leaves digging them up. We came up with a plan to bowsaw or lopper the trees about a foot above the soil. The roots were then dug up with spades, hoes and an iron bar. 4. Removing rubbish and fallen logs from the dock feeder. Two volunteers entered the water with waders, buoyancy aids and some trial full arm length gauntlets. Logs were bowsawn into manageable lengths, removed from the water and dragged up the banks by other volunteers. 5. Construct habitat piles from brash. All the wood was processed for habitat piles including an otter holt.

Many thanks to Katie Tuite-Dalton, Bute Park's Outreach and Education Officer for allowing this valuable work to take place.

Towards the end of the month CFMEP returned to Wern Gethin Lane in St. Mellons to attempt a big clear up with Pearl from Hafod Housing. The four volunteers spent 2.5 hours here and pulled out 1.5 tonnes of rubbish plus 15 bags of rubbish and 7 bags of recycling. On top of this, there were about 7-8 trolleys from the local supermarket (rhymes with Mess-co). Loads of clothes had been dumped as well as loads of household materials such as kitchen cupboards, 2-mattresses a couple of broken bed frames, garden waste, a broken glass table and a frame for another table. All of this was taken away by Cardiff Council's Street Cleansing Department, so thanks to Stuart for organising the rapid removal.

A big thank you and goodbye to Brittany who returns to Canada after spending a few months in Wales. Brittany was so shocked about the litter here that she came out with us to try and make Cardiff a cleaner, tidier and nicer place. Thanks for all your help and generosity and best of luck back home.

On the Sunday of the last day of October, I took part in the annual Autumn Clean up with Atlantic Wharf Residents’ Association. Nine people turned out to help clear litter around the Atlantic Wharf area where we collected 15 rubbish bags, 1 recycle bag, a metal fence, bread crate, wonderbra and a pair of Reef Brazil sandals and an unmentionable item of dubious use. Great fun was had by all and Holiday Inn kindly gave all the vols a cuppa and some biscuits.

All the waste was kindly taken away by Cardiff Parks Services Waste Team unless otherwise mentioned.

September 2011 Autumn fun

September is a big month for Keep Wales Tidy, traditionally incorporating Tidy Wales Week. The month started with a clean up of the upper end of the Roath Brook before it enters the lake from Roath Wild Gardens. Often some of this rubbish just ends up in the lake.

The Cardiff Friday Mornings Environmental Project (CFMEP) had a decent turn out and managed to handsort through the blockage to the grill and rescued 34 bags of rubbish of which 4 were recyclables. Slideshow
Later in the month we constructed a small herb spiral and soft fruit garden with raspberries, red currants and 4-apple trees near Canton Community Centre. Loads of groups were involved in this and has hopefully saved another patch of green space in Canton from being subject to tarmac landscaping. This was a Wild Weekend project and was paid for by John Lewis.

This article was published by the Echo and includes a great picture of one of the toddlers tap dancing a bluebell in the ground.
Slideshow
I had a great event with Cardiff Rivers Group which involved a clean up in the Dock feeder right next to Cardiff Castle. This stream is very important for controlling water levels and comes from the taff next to Blackweir Bridge and comes around Bute Park and exits by the castle. There is a grill there which stops some rubbish and wood debris from being washed downstream. The grill had been raised, but luckily, the water levels were so high that most of the water was higher than the arch so it was a case of scooping off most of the rubbish, move the wood out of the way. I don’t normally go out with CRG as they are a sustainable and competent group, but the risks on this event were higher so I came along to aid Dave King on this day. We collected a mass of bags and tonnes of waste. For a slideshow see here

In TWW we did 3 great events with Llanrumney High, Glan yr Avon Primary (Llanrumney) and Windsor Clive Primary school in Ely. Altogether with these 3 schools we collected over 50 bags of rubbish.
We did a lovely event with the travel and tourism department of Cardiff & Vale College where we collected 15 bags of rubbish and 513 cig butts (the smoking litter was around the reception area of the college). For a slideshow see here
We did a great little event with Llanedeyrn Playcentre where is about 1 hour we pulled out 6 bags of rubbish and pulled up a new stand of Himalayan balsam. For pics see here
We rounded off TWW with a great event in Chapel Wood where we have done a load of work in the past with businesses, and especially St. Philip Evans Primary School. We were lucky to have Jenny Rathbone AM to be out with us as well as a group from BT. Jenny contacted us as she wished to take part in Tidy Wales Week and this seemed like a great event to have her help out. We collected 23 rubbish bags, 14 recycling bags and around a tonne of extra material. Parks’ Waste services were on hand to take the rubbish away almost immediately. Slideshow here