51Âþ» student volunteers during last year’s Big River Clean-up in Leicester to coincide with COP 28
Students are being urged to volunteer for a clean-up of Leicester’s canal and river to stop plastic polluting our oceans and killing wildlife.
Up to 50 students will use a boat to remove plastics from the city’s River Soar and Grand Union Canal as well as collecting rubbish from the riverbanks and nearby land to prevent it even getting into the waterways.
This will be the second year that 51Âþ» has organised a river clean-up to coincide with COP climate talks with 65 bags of plastics and 24 bulky items being taken from waterways and surrounding land last year.
The event is being planned in partnership with Leicester City Council and the Canal and River Trust for Wednesday, 13 November, as part of 51Âþ»’s COP 29 Sustainability Campus Collective programme to coincide with world leaders meeting for climate action talks in Baku, Azerbaijan.
It is estimated that 575,000 items of plastic get into Britain’s rivers and canals every year. More than 80 per cent of the plastic polluting our seas, oceans, and beaches and killing wildlife comes from being discarded on land.
As part of our Big River Clean-Up, 51Âþ» joined forces with the Canal River Trust and Leicester City Council to tackle litter in and around the city’s waterways
Dr Mark Charlton, the Associate Director of 51Âþ»’s SDG Impact Hub, said; “Last year’s event was a big success and students took direct action to make a difference to their environment.
“Every piece of plastic collected from the waterways, riverbanks or land will not be polluting our oceans or harming wildlife.”
The clean-up will take part in the Abbey Meadows area of Leicester and transport will be provided. After the clean-up from 10am-1pm, students will be invited for pizza and given a certificate to mark their efforts.
Any students interested in taking part should email dmusdg16@dmu.ac.uk and put ‘big river clean-up’ in the subject field.
51Âþ» has also appealed to partner universities and organisations across the world to stage similar events during COP 29 to send a powerful message to world leaders meeting in Baku.
Organisations with the United Nations Academic Impact and the Commonwealth Universities Association have been sent details of the Leicester river clean-up with an appeal to stage their own events.
Dr Charlton added: “Last year’s Leicester river clean-up was successful, but we are mindful that this was in just one city in one country across the world.
“Joint action on a large scale would send a powerful message to world leaders at COP 29 and, just as importantly, stop many thousands of pieces of plastics reaching our oceans.”
In world terms, it is estimated that 12 million metric tonnes every year enters our oceans and the cumulative total is now more than 171 trillion pieces of plastic in the seas around the world.