The Midleton leg of An Taisce’s hugely successful National Spring Clean took place on Sunday 18th April jointly organised by Cork Environmental Forum and the Midleton Transition Town group.
This national event, which attracts an enormous number of volunteers all over the country every year, sees community groups and organisations take to their streets, woodlands, glens and so on determined to restore local beauty spots from forgotten and rubbish infested eyesores.
In Midleton members of the local Transition group, who work towards tackling climate change pressures and fossil fuel dependence in the local area, spent their sunny Sunday morning down by the estuary next to the Bailick Rd Park. This area has taken on the appearance of a landfill site in recent years as piles of rubbish are brought in with the high tide. Two hours flew by in a whirl of work, chat and laughter as 10 enthusiastic volunteers managed to gather an amazing 9 large rubbish bags of aluminium cans, 9 bags of plastic bottles, 11 bags of non-recyclable rubbish, 1 42-inch flat screen TV, 1 mattress, 1 sink, a handy collection of road signs and 2 car bootfuls of glass! The group would like to express their thanks to Billy Buckley and Midleton Town Council who were happy to collect the substantial pile and send for recycling where possible.
So perhaps next time you are taking a stroll in the Bailick Rd. Park you might notice how clean and beautiful the estuary is looking upstream. You might also notice that there is plenty left to be done! Members of the team are determined to come back and finish the job on the weekend of 8/9 May (morning to be decided) and are inviting the Midleton public to get involved. If you would like to express an interest in taking part, you can send a quick email to patrick@cef.ie or leave a message with your name and mobile number (so we can send text messages) on 021 4651734.
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