Friends of Holt Island Nature Reserve and their litter pick haul!

A Grant from the Cambridgeshire Community Clean Up Fund together with support from the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Waste Partnership enabled the Friends of Holt Island Nature Reserve to organise a river clean-up on 15 August 2009.

The local Scouts and the St Ives Sub-Aqua Club were also recruited to provide assistance and while the Scouts, Friends and supporters combed the banks and collected from the river itself, the divers dealt with the area beneath St Ives bridge.

The collected rubbish incuded four shopping trolleys, four bicycles, six traffic cones, a floodlight and a microwave. However, to everyone surpise, esepcially the St Ives Sub-Aqua Club divers, they also recovered a World War I mortar bomb from the river bed. Following a temporary halt to proceedings, the Bomb Squad from Colchester carried out a controlled explosion in nearby Hemingford Meadow, watched by a crowd of onlookers. This litter pick was deemed a significant success!