Leicester is litter-less, thanks to its school pupils

This week children and young people from across Leicester’s schools joined together to clean up their neighbourhoods for the Litter Less campaign.

Arranged by our own Eco-Schools manager and the city council, 15 schools – both primary and secondary – litter picked their school grounds and the surrounding streets before joining together at a Leicester park to celebrate their achievements and help raise awareness.

Although the Litter Less campaign (a joint initiative of the Wrigley company and the Foundation for Environmental Education) is now in its seventh year and has run in 35 countries, this is the first time a city’s schools have joined together to achieve such amazing results.

One school alone collected a child’s weight in rubbish (over 7 stone) and by the time the 15 schools met up in Abbey Park, they’d collected a staggering 213 bags full of litter.

And it wasn’t just the streets of Leicester that benefited, as some of the young people involved explain,

“it would be a great idea to do this every week… students learn about how important our environment is and why we should cherish it” – Jenni, year 11, Hamilton Academy.

“fun and enjoyable whilst being good for our school and local environment” – Keira, year 9, Hamilton Academy.

“it’s surprising the impact a few plastic bottles can have, we should recycle a lot more. It was really good how our student council came together as one real community” – Georgina, year 9, Hamilton Academy.

Congratulations to all the staff and pupils involved in making this such an amazing, inspiring day. Joining with countries as far apart as Australia, Mexico, Kenya, China, Russia, India, Spain and Israel in this year’s Litter Less campaign, together we cleaning up the planet by caring for the environment on our own doorsteps.

See more of the event and the inspiring young people involved here.