TWMBARLWM LITTER PICK 27/09/20

Caerphilly BC is under local lockdown therefore the number of volunteers was down a bit – at least four of our regulars could not attend.

A couple were were already there when I arrived – and one new guy arrived on his motorbike. Stalwart Maggie arrived later, making eight of us all together.

The rubbish we collected last month was still there – it had been set fire a couple of days after we’d collected it – somebody had re-bagged it – and yet it had been set alight again – also a pile of scrap metal had been added to it.

In the middle of the car park was the burnt out remains of another fly tip – there was a burnt out PVC door, a pile of builders’ rubble and loads of small gas canisters – a couple of us set about clearing that up with brush and shovel while the others went out and about litter picking. Clearing the bonfire was no easy task as much of it had melted into the tarmac.

A dog walker with an ESS puppy chatted with me – to tell me about a group of up to 30 motorbike scramblers that sped past him on the ridgeway without a care for him or his dog at the time, another dog walker with a working cocker also came down from the mountain had had a similar experience with the gang of bikers.

Overall we gathered about 20 bags of rubbish – including the re-bagging of last month’s burnt out collection.

It was a beautiful day up there and a lot of people were out walking – at one point I counted about 24 cars parked up (including ours). There were also a couple of tents pitched at the entrance to the lane down to Henllys – I hoped they cleared up their mess.

As usual we informed the council of our collection the next day and it was all collected by them on the Tuesday.

I was back up the mountain on Wednesday and can verify that the council had done a great job in picking up the rubbish we had collected – to see it looking so tidy makes it all worthwhile. Especially when I got to talking to a couple of visitors up there, one of whom was an American over here for a walking holiday and to hear him say what a wonderful place it is and how lucky we are to live here.

Here’s a few photos – sorry but forgot to take a photo of the team today – I think they’re all getting photo-shy