Volunteers from Llangattock Community Woodlands recently removed a huge amount of fly tipped rubbish from a woodland below the A40 at Llanwenarth.
Fly tippers have been throwing rubbish into the wood from the layby and this was causing pollution in the woodland and the river Usk. The big ‘Clean Up’ up took place on 25th January at Jarretts’ Wood to clear historic fly tipping at this important site by the Usk River near Glangrwyney.
Eighteen hardy souls turned out to volunteer on a Sunday to pick up litter some of it overgrown with brambles and ivy having been there for decades. It was quite a challenge to extract large items such as bed frames, cookers, electric heaters and tyres up the steep slope below the lay by, also the weight of the large volume of glass bottles dumped was a problem.
To get the rubbish out a portable winch was used to pull dumpy bags filled with rubbish up the steep slope, making the operation safe and fast.
Llangattock Community Woodlands received funding to purchase the winch from Monmouthshire Building Society ACORN Fund and Powys Environmental Partnership. The team filled over 40 orange bags with rubbish plus 3 big dumpy bags and pulled out 6 tyres, Monmouthshire County Council supported this clean up by removing the pile of rubbish the next day.
Huw Lloyd the Woodland/Volunteer Manager for Llangattock Community Woodlands said “The group has worked hard over the past year to control invasive species and create greater biodiversity in the woodland, it is very unsatisfactory to have rubbish continually thrown into the wood causing pollution. We will work with Keep Wales Tidy and Monmouthshire County Council to implement measures to deter future fly tipping”
Jackie Charlton Chair of Llangattock Community Woodlands said, “Now we are getting to grips with the rubbish we can really start to encourage new biodiversity measures on this slope which is part of the River Usk SSSI. Several water courses have been cleared with more to go providing cleaner stretches down to the river.”
This initiative is supported by the Community Led Fund from Tidy Towns Wales which has provided funding to control invasive species and fly tipping. Monmouthshire County Council put up a bank and hedging during 2014 to try to deter fly tipping.
The group has also planted Hawthorn and Blackthorn along the woodland edge, a prickly deterrent to future fly tippers.
