Poole’s Big Clean

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Poole’s Big Clean, operated by the Business Improvement District (BID), will return for its third year from Monday, May 13 until Friday, May 17, in a bid to tackle litter and clean up the area in time for the peak tourist season.

Volunteers are required to get involved with all activities from litter picking to dressing shop windows. Sessions will be hosted on the high street each day from 10am until 4pm, and volunteers can participate for as long as they are able to.

In 2018, 78 shop windows were cleaned, along with 62 store signs and clearing out 47 gutters. Four days of volunteer-led litter picking resulted in the collection of 39 bags of rubbish.

Justin Hundley-Appleton, Poole BID manager, commented: “Our Big Clean is a great chance to get involved in prepping the town for its busy summer season. We’d like to encourage our local businesses and levy payers to get involved along the way and take pride in our surroundings – perhaps encourage a team to come along for a lunchtime litter pick, or get involved with updating your window displays and having a spring clean of the interiors.”

Local organisation GoPladdle will be hosting the Big Harbour Clean-Up over the weekend of May 18 and 19, following the BID’s Big Clean. Volunteers are encouraged to get out on the water and clean up the harbour, diving teams will also be clearing the bottom of the harbour and those with watercraft will be encouraged to focus on the harder to reach areas of the coastline.

Rosie and Jake, founders of GoPladdle, added: “Poole Harbour is the second largest natural harbour in the world, and provides important habitat for a multitude of wildlife, including native and migrating birds. In recent years, awareness of plastic pollution has increased, and unfortunately, so has the scale of the problem. Every day the UK gets through over 38million plastic bottles and around 8million pieces of plastic end up in our oceans every day.”