The 2019 River Clean Up Sonning to Shiplake – Report

Sunday 28th April 2019

The 4th Annual Sonning to Shiplake River Clean Up saw records fall again in terms of attendance.

17 boats
25 Adults
30 School age children

 

This year we had volunteers in Sonning clearing the weir stream above the French Horn and we towed a handful of canoes up to the wires closer to Sonning to clear the reeds which badly needed doing, as well as a couple of boats cleaning the stretch from Shiplake lock to the College.

This year, newly formed Marlow Canoe Hire  donated seven canoes to the army of volunteers with more from the Shiplake College fleet and some private boats.

The organisers are grateful for a the some local regular volunteers, the Outloars, and extra support from Shiplake College’s Outreach Department who organised more pupils and staff to be involved this year, along with the use of their river front again.

A large haul of over 20 bags and various large objects of all sorts were fished out from the beaches, banks, reeds and tree roots.

Once again, plastic bags were low again compared to a few years ago. We saw a rise in glass bottles, and for the second year in a row a worrying amount of syringes and needles.

The usual road signs, and a plastic hippo stood out this year from the haul and some things that we cannot mention here!

Organiser, Guy Fisher said:
“Thank you to everyone who came along again and for the first time this year to help. It really does make a huge difference to the look of the river and to the animals sharing of one of the most beautiful stretches on the Thames”.

Guy went further to say, “I am concerned that with the increasing amounts of permanent house boats on the stretch that sewage and rubbish is disposed of correctly, knowing that this is a problem on other parts of the river”.

We plan to organise another River Clean next year. See you then!

 

GALLERY 2019 Clean Up: