Radnorshire Wildlife Trust

PRESS RELEASE April 2007
WILDLIFE TRUST CLEANS UP NOTED RADNORSHIRE BEAUTY SPOT
Wildlife Trust volunteers by the full skip. Standing (left to right): Sheila Turner, Rosemary Standen, Carol Taylor, Stanley Turner, Joan Payne, Nick King, Frank Ward. Front row: Pip Amos, Ian Standen, Ann Harvey, Clive Payne. Also helping in the clean-up were volunteers Dave and Felicity Gill and Doreen and Stan Knight.
Conservation volunteers from the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust have been working hard at Shaky Bridge, the popular picnic place and noted beauty spot on the River Ithon at Cefnllys near Llandrindod Wells. The picnic place is situated on a particularly lovely stretch of the river which unfortunately has become disfigured by junk and debris. Illegal fly tippers are the main source of the problem. The rubbish rolls down the steep bank above the picnic site and ends up at the waters edge or even in the river itself.
Shaky Bridge is also the entrance to the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust’s woodland nature reserve at Bailey Einon, and the Trust was concerned that the approach to the reserve was spoilt by the fly tipping. However a grant from the Powys Environmental Partnership Small Grants Scheme has enabled it to carry out a clean-up, not just at Shaky Bridge but also at the entrances to other nature reserves. Part of the grant was used to buy waders and a small boat so that rubbish could be removed from the river bed and steep river banks. Powys County Council provided a skip and the Trust’s regular conservation volunteers turned out in force to tackle the job. The work was heavy and often very unpleasant. All sorts of junk was heaved out – a washing machine, central heating boiler, motorbike, pushbike and toddler’s pushchair – even the remains of a car. Some of it was distinctly dangerous, like the asbestos the volunteers found or the broken glass from dumped window frames. Spending the day clearing up someone else’s rubbish doesn’t put people in the best of moods, and the volunteers have a number of messages they would like to pass on to the fly tippers. They find it hard to understand people who keep their own houses, cars and gardens tidy by dumping their rubbish on someone else. ‘ We found a complete kitchen that had been dumped’, said one volunteer. ‘Kitchen units, broken tiles, taps – everything. How does that person feel about their smart new kitchen when they think of their old kitchen sitting in the river?’ Other volunteers were at a loss to know why people go to the trouble of driving out to Shaky Bridge to tip illegally when they can take their rubbish to the recycling site at Llandegley for free. Wildlife Trust Reserves Officer Jonathan Stone, who led the clean-up operation, described the harm that rubbish can do to wildlife. ‘Small mammals like woodmice and voles often get trapped in bottles and slowly starve to death,’ he said. ‘In addition, birds and small mammals die when they get entangled in plastic debris.’ Another problem for wildlife is the pollution from the chemicals in domestic appliances like fridge-freezers. Dumped garden rubbish also causes a lot of problems as some non-native plants can be very invasive when they escape into the wild.	The remains of a car lying in the river. Wildlife Trust volunteers Stanley Turner and Ann Harvey take a dumped bike to the skip. Some of the debris collected from the river bank.
The conservation volunteers want to encourage people to come and enjoy the lovely riverside at Shaky Bridge while it’s still looking good – but they say please, please take your litter home with you! The lovely River Ithon after the clean-up.

WILDLIFE TRUST CLEANS UP NOTED RADNORSHIRE BEAUTY SPOT