Walk Derbyshire joins the Transition Chesterfield LitterSorters group

Find out more about how the group enjoys walking with a purpose to make Chesterfield a cleaner and a greener place to walk, cycle and wheel #getfitterpicklitter

So welcome to Litter Sorters We have gloves in there for people to wear high vis jackets extra clippers and spare bags We’ve been doing a load of community engagement recently and lots of people bring up litter as one of the   barriers to walking. There’s lots of different reasons people feel much happier being outside  

When it’s clean and when it’s lovely and  also people feel like it’s less safe if   there’s litter as well people just prefer to walk around if it’s nice and clean.  Transition Chesterfield is part of the national and international transition  movement our group was formed in 2008 and  

The transition movement’s about preparing for a low carbon future we do practical Community   Action so that people can start to feel they can make a difference. I mean people feel that climate   change is such an overwhelming challenge and they want to do something that’s starting to make  

Their Community a place where that we’re going to be able to live for the future.  Clearly we’ve got to do something about the stuff that gets thrown away so this is one solution is to pick   it up when it has been thrown away but hopefully by highlighting the fact that we are finding all this  

Stuff we might be able to build in some reduction of stuff further further back so that then we   don’t have to pick it up later. So something like our litter sorting group is a way where people can come come together and feel they’re making the  community cleaner and greener. We meet once a month  

On the the second Thursday and it’s open to anyone so we publicise it through various social   media outlets and so sometimes people come because they know about Transition Chesterfield   and some people just come because they found out about us. So we gather there in Queens Park and  

We make sure we’re all equipped with the with the safety stuff as well as the litter picking   stuff so high vis jackets and gloves and yeah it’s sometimes 8 to 10 people or 13 as it is today.

It gets me out of the house you know out in the fresh air I don’t have to have a gym subscription I feel   good you know and it’s socialable as well you know get to chat to people which is very nice I’ve done   a bit of networking this morning so yeah very pleased.

All positive physical and mental health and meeting people because I live on my own I get a bit isolated at times.   I’m in between jobs at the moment so to give me a break from sitting behind my desk and applying for jobs  

And get the dog out there and I’ve done it before with a a little village that I used to live in   so I thought I’d to come along and have a go I checked first if they’d let me bring Nelly but as  

You can see she’s quite compliant. I moved here to Chesterfield after a divorce I didn’t know anybody   so yeah me building my network up and everywhere is so messy nowadays people just litter terribly. So I’ve been chatting to people as I’ve been walking along and everyone’s super friendly it’s a brilliant team.

I had a quick look at how far we’ve  gone we’ve done about 4,000 steps and for somebody who   doesn’t walk very much generally that’s quite a long way to walk without even realising you are   so it’s kind of walking with a purpose being out in nature speaking to people and it’s been it’s been really nice.

That looks like 1.5. Don Catchment  River Trust were extremely supportive they funded   the bin and an initial amount of equipment so that we’ve got the litter pickers and the hoops   they also provided us with first aid training and they were very much part of setting us up  

And the volunteers grew out of that group there very much for us partnership working between our   volunteer group Transition Chesterfield we’ve had Don Catchment River Trust we work with the   council because they actually installed the bin in their park and every month they replenish the  

Litter bags and they provide gloves and hand gel things like that any community group could get   some litter pickers together in fairly low cost  and it’s a very positive and group activity to   do so makes a real difference and people feel

They’ve done something really useful so yes I would say think about doing it and also think about litter picking on your own as well   if you want an excuse to go out for a walk and you can go around the block and just pick litter  

While you’re walking adopt a little bit of your local area take a bag and a picker and a pair of   gloves and you know it gives you an excuse to go out for half an hour or an hour then yes go for it