'Clean Up Peterborough': Resident's mission to clean up city streets with new volunteer litter picking campaign

A Peterborough man is on a mission to rid Peterborough’s streets of litter by spearheading a new volunteer-led clean-up campaign.

The ‘Clean Up Peterborough’ campaign is the brainchild of Mark Fishpool – a resident whose commitment to changing attitudes towards litter came after he took it upon himself to tidy up his own street, Garton End Road.

Mark is currently a member of the ‘Peterborough Litter Wombles’ group – a band of volunteers dedicated to litter picking across the city.

He now hopes his new campaign can bring together volunteers and members of Peterborough City Council at events to educate the next generation about the impact of litter – as well as calling on residents to “adopt” the streets they live on.

“I’ve lived in Peterborough all my life and over the last few years I’ve noticed the litter problem,” Mark said.

“So many people living in Peterborough are sick to death of how the city is looking.

“We’re spending millions of pounds in Peterborough on infrastructure projects, but we need to get down to basics and have a clean city that visitors will admire when they arrive.

"I want to create a friendly, non-political, group of volunteers and run an event in Peterborough where volunteers and the council come together to clean up the city.

"I want there to be public speakers to speak about the impact litter is having on the environment, nature and humans, and to educate children in schools.”

Mark said litter has become “an issue in society”, with it becoming “the norm” for people to drop their rubbish on the floor for someone else to pick up rather than putting it in bins themselves.

“I’d like people to adopt their streets, keeping them clean and tidy to make areas look better,” he added.

“Now there’s no litter on the floor on our street, people have second thoughts about dropping their litter.

"It used to take me all day to clear it up – now it doesn’t take me long at all.”