The second the bi-annual litter pick in Chawton took place on Saturday 12th January 2008, this event is designed to clean up the area we all live in and make it more pleasant for those who live here and hopefully make people think twice before chucking out their rubbish in our picturesque village, we base this on the prinicple that the presence of litter makes people feel less concerned about "adding more" to whats already present and the many visitors who come here probably don't want a carrier bag in the hedge spoling their picture.

This event had a good turn-out of around 20 people with a good representation from many areas of the community, including children, parents, older members of the comunity and several parish councillors. At this event we were also supported by several members of the ahmadiyya organisation, who found out about or event via this web site when they were organising one of their events in the village hall (see calendar for details) being local at East Worldham, they offered to come and help out.

In the two hours that the event took, we collected over 20 full refuse bags of rubbish from around the village, which is more than double the volume collected at the last event - and with more people !

The area we covered went from the old Gosport road, right the way through the village centre and out to the A31/A32 roundabout, down Wolf's Lane and down to the end of the Winchester Road to the Butts roundabout - which although strictly part of Alton is how those who travel on foot get to see our village.

The volunteers were amazed by the sort of things they found, which included several petrol cans, oil cans, a car wheel and tyre, the top of a wooden table, a lorry wheel arch, mud flaps, plastic pipes, a long length of rope, and over 100 glass bottles - all hardly the sort of things that "happen by accident". If you dump - please think and take it home with you. 

As with previous events, we were supported by EHDC environmental services team who provided the litter pickers and collect the rubbish that we collect during the event. We would like to thank everyone who helped to make this event successful and hope that it inspires others to follow our lead.

The following picture shows a sub-set of those involved, since this was taken at the end of the event (those with stamina ?) when some people had already finished their areas and knocked off for a well deserved lunch break.

We intend to continue this very successful bi-annual event. The next one will be in the summer somewhere in June - exact dates to follow in due course and will appear on the village calendar.