Litter Picking - Love Your Chelmsford

The Love Your Chelmsford team runs a litter picking volunteer programme for residents, schools, businesses, and community groups.

We loan out kits of litter picking equipment for a maximum of 14 days at a time free of charge. These kits include an adult or child size litter picker, gloves, hi-vis jacket, and branded heavy-duty litter bags. The equipment is to be collected and returned at Freighter House, Drovers Way, Springfield.

You can request equipment by clicking on the green button below, but first please read our safety guidelines for undertaking litter picking activities:

Please wear the personal protective equipment (PPE) we supply you with. This is for your own safety.
Please do not litter pick on dual carriageways or A roads. We have trained members of staff for this task.
Please do not litter pick on privately owned land without permission.
When litter picking with children ensure they are always supervised.
If you find knives or weapons, please call 101 and report this to the police immediately.
If you find any needles or drug paraphernalia, please report this at www.chelmsford.gov.uk

Litter Picking Equipment Request Form

Here is how to dispose of your collected litter:

If you collect 5 bags of litter or less, please leave these by a street bin for collection by our Street Care team.
For more than 5 bags of litter, please email us with the location and we’ll arrange a collection. lyc@chelmsford.gov.uk
Keep (N2O) cannisters, vapes and batteries separate from bagged litter as these are classified as hazardous waste. Please place them next to a litter bin and email us with the location. We’ll arrange a collection.

What to do with the litter you collect

We offer litter picking equipment loans to schools and extra-curricular clubs (Scouts, Brownies, etc.). We have all the necessary PPE and litter picking equipment needed for your class or group to engage in tidying up your local community. We will also organise the collection of the bags of litter after the session.

Duke of Edinburgh Award Volunteering

We offer extended loans of 3 or 6 months to students who wish to volunteer with us to complete their Duke of Edinburgh award. We supply a maximum of 2 kits per individual volunteer request, one for the student and one for a parent, guardian, or friend should they wish to join them.

In order for a member of our team to confirm the volunteering hours at the end of the 3/6 months, we ask that the individual keeps a digital journal of their volunteering, and once a week writes a few sentences on where they’ve picked and also adds a photo of the filled bags along with it. This can be done in digitally on Microsoft Word, Pages or Google Docs.

At the end of the 3/6 months they’ll need to send us this document as evidence of the volunteering. At which point we’ll be able to check through this and then submit an assessor form to confirm they’ve volunteered with us.

To begin this process please submit an equipment request and make it clear in the ‘comments section’ that you wish to complete your Duke of Edinburgh volunteering with us, a member of our team will then get in contact with you.

School and Youth Volunteering

Please see below a message from the Chelmsford Litter Wombles:

“Hi Friend,

As you’re visiting the Love Your Chelmsford volunteer litter picking page, we would like to invite you to join the Chelmsford Litter Wombles.

We are a local community group that are passionate about keeping Chelmsford litter-free and enjoy meeting like-minded people. We often arrange group litter picks too.

Are you interested? Then please find us on Facebook.”

Corporate & Community Group Volunteering

Keeping our local area clean is a community effort that depends on every single person, while the City Council’s fantastic Street Care team work 365 days a year to sweep our streets, pick up fly-tips and remove graffiti, the job of keeping Chelmsford clean is never ending and there’s always more to do.

Thankfully we have the support of hundreds of volunteers in Chelmsford who give up their time to litter pick in their local area. Whether that’s daily, weekly, or monthly, every single can, bottle and cigarette butt picked up makes a huge difference to our city.

Thank you on behalf of Chelmsford residents and wildlife for helping to keep our city clean and safe.

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