Hillwalkers and Climbers Urged to Keep Mountains Free From Litter

Hillwalkers and Climbers Urged to Keep Mountains Free From Litter

Hillwalkers and Climbers Urged to Keep Mountains Free From Litter

Hillwalkers and climbers are being urged to take part in a cleanup campaign that will rid the country’s mountains of litter. The British Mountaineering Council (BMC)  will launch the initiative at the Sheffield Adventure Film Festival. The campaign is going to be called ‘The Hills to Oceans; Removing Mountains of Waste’ or H2O for short.

A spokesperson for the BMC said that figures from Greenpeace suggest that 80% of the litter that ends up in oceans comes from inland, and that’s why they are trying to raise awareness among walkers and climbers about the consequences of dropping litter.

Joining the dots

Several litter picks already take place around the country to keep mountains free from litter, including events organised by Keep Britain Tidy, Keep Wales Tidy, the Real Three Peaks, and Surfers Against Sewage which is carrying out a litter picking campaign called Summit to Sea, in April. But the BMC says that the problem is that there’s no one place where hillwalkers and climbers can go and find out about the litter picks. This will be one area of focus for the BMC, bringing all of the information together and including links so people can sign up to litter picking events there and then.

Climber

Getting walkers involved

The other focuses of the campaign are linking up with walking clubs and various climbing and walking festivals to carry out a litter pick and urging the general public to pick up litter from their local hills and walks. The BMC said it can provide the resources for anyone who wants to get involved and organise a litter picking event.

The BMC will be producing an online resource pack with advice on what to wear, the insurance you’ll need, and the risk assessments you’ll need to carry out, and it said it can also give out t-shirts, biodegradable rubbish bags, and litter pickers.

The BMC also plans to ask litter pickers to gather data about how much rubbish they’ve collected, what they’ve found, and what brands are often noticed. This will help the organisation target their campaign, possibly at any big brands who need to do more to raise litter awareness among their customers.

The organisation is seizing on the war against plastic and it says that its ultimate aim is to clean up litter and to make people think about the everyday decisions they make, from using reusable bottles to avoiding single-use plastic.