Keep Wales Tidy’s latest competition winners showcases the importance of families and communities coming together to keep Wales beautiful.’
Young people across Wales were encouraged to search for weird and wonderful items of litter in their community over September, taking over Keep Wales Tidy’s social media channels in the process – with the weirdest and oldest items of litter winning the day.
The competition called ‘Tidy Takeover’ promoted a litter free Wales and celebrated the growing number of litter picking hubs now re-open across the country.
With many communities coming together to clean up their areas on a weekly basis, Keep Wales Tidy encouraged younger people, under the age of 25, to head out and take part in cleaning up their patch.
Our winning entry by Jules O’Shea was of her and her 9-year-old son Isaac who regularly comb the beaches of Carmarthenshire with their family members, making sure their local environment looks as clean and tidy as possible. The find itself was an old wooden shooting target, which is now proudly mounted on Isaac’s bedroom wall.
Jules said :
“Beach cleaning and litter picking as a family has shown our children the impact of things that are thrown away or discarded. Finding 25 year old crisp packets and 40 year old plastic wrappers has shown them first hand the damage that single use plastic can have on our environment and the animals that live in it.”
“Getting outside and doing something as positive as cleaning up our local areas has also been a massive help to our mental well-being, especially during these difficult times. Our 9 year old Isaac also loves the fact that we find some pretty amazing things while we’re cleaning up too.”
