A SMALL PROBLEM

In April of 2017, The Friends of Three Cornered Copse filled 35 black sacks with litter, as part of the Great British Spring Clean. This year's event had to be postponed due to Covid-19 reasons, but I imagine that after the lockdown we will be collecting a similar amount of litter, due to the increased use of the copse during these weeks.

There is no large capacity waste bin in Three Cornered Copse, only five "dog poo bins", which in normal times is enough to cope with the regular users. But lately they have been overflowing with cans, crisp tubes, pizza boxes and many disposable cups from the popular Hill Top Cafe. Thanks to our volunteers, the council is soon notified when a bin needs emptying, and they are often quite responsive.

But its the litter which doesn't find its way into the bins that will be a problem. At some point in our development from children to adults, the behaviour of leaving the empty packets, bottles and cans of our picnics behind when we leave is replaced by a public responsibility to clean the site and find a place to dispose of the remains, or take it home. This development seems to happen at varying ages, and the evidence of this is often to be found in the copse during this find spell of weather.

But all parks are seeing more rubbish than usual, as are the beaches. However, unlike Hove Park, we have no council rangers regularly clearing up, and we rely on our friends and volunteers, who walk through the copse on a regular basis, and will often collect together the debris of these events and deal with them appropriately. But during this extraordinary time, collecting other people's food or drink containers isn't something we should do, without protective equipment and a litter picker.

So please be litter alert when using the copse at this time, and remember, if more people picked up litter than dropped it, there wouldn't be any.

Simon Baxendale