Saintfield’s Big Spring Clean!

Saintfield Development Association‘s Litter Pick on Saturday 23rd May was supported by Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful and Newry, Mourne and Down District Council.

Cleaning up the village not only creates a more pleasant place for us to live, but it also creates a good impression for anyone visiting our community!

Lawrence Murphy, organiser of Saintfield’s Big Spring Clean, showing maps of the six zones to be tackled by the litter picking teams.  HQ for the morning is 2nd Saintfield Presbyterian Church Hall.

Volunteers and members of Saintfield Development Association register and choose their litter picking zones.

I joined one of the litter picking teams to see how they got on.  Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful has an “Adopt A Spot” scheme for particularly bad dumping grounds for waste. This is one such spot between Moyra Drive and Forge Hill Court where we found the expected discarded bottles and fast food waste.  However one bodybuilder had obviously discarded his empty whey protein tub.  What a pity he didn’t have the strength to take it home to his own bin!  Three bags of waste material were gathered here.

A member of the public requested a special clean-up of the alleyway between Downpatrick Street and Queen’s Park.

The litter picking carried on as far as the gateway signs.

After two hours of gathering litter the happy pickers of all ages returned to 2nd Saintfield for well-earned refreshments kindly provided by the Church.

During the Big Spring Clean the pickers were in contact with a mobile team that drove to the various groups and collected their full bags and took them to the central collection point for later removal by Newry, Mourne and Down district Council.

30 BAGS OF LITTER & FILTH WERE REMOVED FROM SAINTFIELD’S STREETS!

24 volunteers helped with this litter pick, but there was still so much left undone.  If you would like to help with the next litter pick then please contact us at: info [at] discoversaintfield [dot] com