The Dark Side of Wilden Marsh – 4 images
I hope that many of those reading this blog view my Wilden Marsh and Hoo Wood images as representing the beautiful unspoilt urban countryside of North Worcestershire. However, there is a darker side that causes me great sadness: rubbish washed down the 25 miles long River Stour. Some of the rubbish rafts have been stuck in the same place for so long they are beginning to grass-over.
Wilden Marsh, being a floodplain, is regularly flooded, and regularly covered with all kinds of detritus, as these images show. We remove the rubbish from the marsh, but the river comes under the jurisdiction of the Environment Agency. EA do occasionally remove these rubbish rafts, but they soon reform again.
Old iron collected from the flooded wooded pasture on Wilden Marsh. Obviously, this old iron didn’t float down the River Severn.
Floating rubbish raft beginning to grass-over in the Wilden Marsh section of the River Stour.
Floating rubbish raft in Wilden Marsh section of the River Stour.
The River Stour at the point I repaired the cut fence on Friday. The branches in the middle of the river might be the start of a rubbish raft.
I’m glad you shared this view as well.
I try to avoid the rubbish rafts; I don’t want the be the one finding a body there.
Some people!
I was just telling my wife about how, has kids, we went to the forest preserves a lot as kids… and that it was risky because they would occasionally find bodies buried there.
I have not yet found a body; I guess it’s not much fun.
So sad to see all the rubbish. I see it a lot in our parks and reserves too.
It is hard to bear.
Well it is for me, Tom. The solution to the rubbish problem is elusive.
I favour a change in our whole approach to land ownership so that people actually felt that the land belonged to them in some way and that they had a duty to look after it accordingly but since that it not going to happen, the solution is as you say very elusive.
Well it does happen, Tom. We put a hedge, wall, or fence around it and call it home.
If we are lucky. Many people are tenants all their lives and live in a land of Private – Keep Out notices.
I replaced a “Keep Out” notice on the marsh yesterday. Some people don’t like being asked to keep out.
Does your notice say why people should keep out?
Yes. The notice asks, politely, that people not go beyond a particular point between 1st April and 10th August because it’s the bird nesting season.
I think a person/people remove the notice so they can say they are not aware of the restriction if they are approached and questioned.
There is no excuse if a good reason is given.
It really is time they sorted out where this stuff comes from someone, somewhere puts it in the river.
I reckon it’s people that throw in all the rubbish floating down the river, Linda.
A never ending battle!! There’s always work parties being put together from local volunteers to try cleaning up the rubbish in the local canals.
I suppose it’s inevitable! It’s the Poo Stick Syndrome. Seeing things float off into the distance is more satisfying in a fast flowing river like the Stour. A discarded piece of rubbish disappears very quickly from a person’s life if thrown on a river, and there aren’t enough rubbish bins about, which is never a good excuse for not disposing of rubbish properly.
Another thing that gets my goat is people putting dog waste in a plastic bag and then leaving it on the ground, or hang in it on a tree branch for someone else to dispose of. What is the thinking behind it?
Oh the poo bags left on trees is something I’ve come across too and I just have no idea what on earth goes through these people’s minds!?!?! Is it a protest against having to clear up after their dogs? It’s bizarre and disgusting. There are quite a number of bins along the Basingstoke Canal but they don’t really get used. People are just lazy 🙁
I wonder if these people think that the local council employ a dog poo collector, whose job it is to ferret-out and deal with full poo bags. I can’t think of another reason why they do it. I have a person come up to me and place a full poo bag at my feet.
No way!!!!!! That’s extraordinary 😮 What did you do or say? My mum used to be a warden for woodland next to where we lived in Fetcham and I was talking to her about this earlier. She said she caught a bunch of kids one day who’d emptied the dog bin of the bags and were having some sort of game, lobbing them into tree branches overhanging the pathway. Shame she didn’t have any powers to fine or otherwise punish them 🙁 When she got a long stick and told them to knock the bags down again and clear up the mess they just laughed in her face and ran off. I don’t think it’s just kids pranks though. I’ve seen it too many places! Just pure laziness.
It was a grey haired old woman that laid the bag of dog poo at my feet. I shouted: “You’ve left you bag of dog poo here.” She turn, looked at me, smiled, and walked off. I took the bag home and put it in my rubbish bin.
The gift you’d always wanted!!! People astound me with their idiocy and selfishness 🙁 It’s actually mostly older retired people who look after the canal area as volunteers here. Everyone younger is already working too hard and long hours or they’re disabled like me so limited as to what we can do. The older generation is usually so much more aware of environmental needs so I’m even more astonished that it was an elderly woman who did this to you!
What you say is very true, Sarah.
People really do need to get to grips with how to deal with the rubbish that they create. This is just a snapshot of a global problem.