For the ‘Conserve’ element of the John Muir Award, young people are encouraged and challenged to take part in tasks that help to protect or conserve their chosen place, or places. Litter picking, while perhaps an obvious choice for a conservation task, works really well with a lot of our students because of its physicality and accessibility: anyone can do it, and we can all make a visible difference. The Two Minute Beach Clean has been a really successful initiative that has championed this message: the litter pick doesn’t have to be long and arduous. But if we all pitch in to help, the difference we can each make is immense.
A litter pick is also a great way for young people to get out, explore and truly appreciate the human impact upon nature in their community. You can make it competitive, or you can make it into a game: who can fill the bag first? Who can count as many different types of litter as possible?
And, after all, who can deny the satisfaction that comes with seeing a ‘before’ and ‘after’ picture of a particularly messy beach clean-up?
It’s also a great way to introduce them to the basics of conservation, citizen science, and ecology.
We can conduct litter surveys for the Marine Conservation Society, sending valuable citizen science data to scientists. We can also look for Nurdles, or plastic pellets; small lentil-sized pieces of plastic that are the building blocks for most plastic products. We can report this as part of the Great Nurdle Hunt, a citizen science project launched to monitor microplastics in our oceans and coasts. Due to their size, and often clear colour, nurdles can look like fish eggs which makes them particularly attractive to seabirds, fish and other marine wildlife ingesting them.
Every time they go out, kids can discover what types of litter they find in their environment and learn more about the kinds of things that people should be disposing of properly. It may open up a conversation (and often a quick Google) on how long it takes certain items to decompose — what about a shoe (30-40 years)? A cigarette butt (500-1000 years)? A can of Coke (250 years)?
In turn, this opens up conversations about our own plastic use and the potential impact of plastic on the food chain — including how it may come to enter our own part of the chain.
By playing an active role in cleaning up their local environment, kids become more aware of how important it is to protect nature and why we should all be doing our part to keep our environment clean. Overall, litter picking is a great way to allow our young people to continue to develop an appreciation for nature and an awareness and understanding of their own environmental impact, with their efforts recognised and celebrated with the John Muir Award.