Wharf comment: Cleaning the Thames

By Giles Broadbent on March 4, 2010 5:09 PM |

Tagged with:

The low spring tide this year exposed the banks of the Thames to the full glare of public view. It didn't present a pretty site.

Volunteers donned welly boots to trudge through the clammy mud at the Isle of Dogs and North Woolwich and found a range of unsavoury and unsightly items.

Plastic bags, the scourge of landfill sites, were a predictable culprit, alongside shopping trolleys (and it was good to see volunteers from Asda and Waitrose retrieving their employers hardware).

There is every reason to be optimistic about the Thames - it is heading in the right direction in terms of ecology and there is a concerted effort to maintain the impetus.
(Take, for example, Thames Waters' multi-million-pound investment strategy to keep the Lea free of storm sewage.)

However, this is a personal battle as well as a local, national and global one. A plastic bag dating from 1977 was telling evidence how an individual's unthinking actions can last a lifetime.

The Thames is too precious and important to be the depositary of bad habits. The tide is turning - but there's still a long way to go.