Burnley man on a mission to clean town from litter

Burnley man Michael Smith is on a mission to clean litter on every single street in the town.

Transcript

00:00So I'm on a mission to litter pick every single street in Burnley. So that's 1146 streets, roads,

00:11groves and avenues. And so far how is it going? I believe you've collected, is it 669 pieces of

00:19litter? It's more now actually, it's a thousand, over a thousand in the first few weeks. Recycled

00:25about 20% of them. Happily sometimes I'm finding there's not a lot on certain streets but then

00:32other places there's hot spots and just really enjoying it. It's really satisfying to feel like

00:37you're making a difference. And tell me what inspired you to do this? So beyond the obvious

00:45thing of wanting to clear up an eyesore, there's other factors like I wanted to help save the

00:50council some money. So I didn't want them having to spend taxpayers money on picking up rubbish.

00:56I'd rather they spend it on help for the homeless or caring the community or libraries or something

01:03else. As well I'm doing it for wildlife because a lot of animals get tangled up in rubbish or the

01:12chalk on it. So that's another thing. And then lastly sort of selfishly just to get outside,

01:19learn more about my town, get some exercise. And you actually have a blog and a website don't you

01:24where people can follow your litter picking journey? I do yeah, so every day when I've been

01:30out I update my map with the streets I've done, the amount of litter I've picked up, the weird things I

01:35find and yeah I'm just sort of steadily crawling my way across Burnley. Tell me about the weird

01:41things that you've found then? I've found, yesterday I found a flip-flop but only one.

01:48I've found a Bart Simpson sock. I found, a couple of days ago I found an unused voucher, gift voucher

01:56for a toy shop. And then I found some tape that said, some fluorescent Halloween tape that said

02:02warning zombies keep out. But I went in anyway and carried on. And you're actually writing a book as

02:08well about your project aren't you? Yeah it's called My Rubbish Book. So it'll be a discussion of the

02:14psychology of why people litter, what we can do about it, some of the really cool inventions that

02:20people have come up with to encourage people to put rubbish in a bin and then all of the

02:28encounters I've had with people around Burnley and some personal reflections. So yeah we're looking

02:34forward to getting that out. And the people of Burnley, have they been quite supportive of what

02:38you're doing? Yeah really supportive. I get people honking their horns as they drive past, thumbs up

02:44out the windows, get people stopping saying thanks very much and are you with the council and when I

02:51say no I'm just a volunteer they're even more grateful. And I think some people have been

02:58inspired to take it up themselves as well which is great. So leading by example you'd be surprised

03:04how effective and contagious it is.