Sutton Council issued a call to local people to get involved in the country’s first ever Community Clear Up Day on Saturday 21 March.

Richard joined with other residents organised by his local residents’ association, the Highfields Residents’ Association, to help clear his local neighbourhood of litter. Richard is a former chair of the Association.

The Council supported volunteer groups willing to help clear their local area, by providing litter picking tools, rubbish sacks and gloves.

As well as being an awful blight on the green borough of Sutton, litter costs the council up to £4m a year to clean up.  That is the equivalent of running a library service for a year; repairing 100,000 potholes, providing 210 residential care places for the elderly; or building half a primary school.

The Council successfully campaigned against litter last year – hiring two new enforcement officers to issue penalties to those who litter in Sutton; installing 300 new bins; and even displaying 11 tonnes of rubbish on the high street, to demonstrate a year’s worth of litter.

But there is still work to be done to keep Sutton clean and save the taxpayer money.