Litter picking in Thame

Litter picking in Thame has a long and successful history. ‘Thame Tidy’ days used to be delivered by 21st Century Thame, followed by the creation of Thame Wombles who were established in Thame during the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020.

Today you can get involved in the following ways:

• purchase a litter picker, grab a bin liner, and head out to see what you can find. Make sure you take care – and the guidelines given by Keep Britain Tidy are worth reading to make sure that you dont pick up anything dangerous, or that you are not allowed to put in your own black bin when you return home with the bag you have collected.
• register as a Duke of Edinburgh volunteer. Although the majority of the work you do will need to be self-led, with parental permission, Thame Town Council can provide support for you to do this by providing equipment and signing off the hours you do. Please contact us through the form here and someone from TTC will contact you.
• by organising a Business Litter Pick. If you are interested in doing this then the place to go is here. The will be able to provide you with all equipment you need and arrange to pick up the litter you collect.
• support a Thame event – any community events will want to support you

Duke of Edinburgh Award

Following the official end of ‘Thame Wombles’ there is no one who directly organises litter picking for DofE awards locally. However Thame is part of ‘Plastic Free Communities’ an initiative run with Surfers Against Sewage. They provide the opportunity to join their Million Mile Clean, organising and logging your own local litter picks for your Duke of Edinburgh Award (Bronze, Silver or Gold). SAS is an Approved Activity Provider (AAP) for DofE and can sign off your hours — just register your cleans, collect evidence and email them when you’re done. They provide equipment and insurance to cover your activity.

• 👉 Find out more here: https://www.sas.org.uk/plastic-pollution/million-mile-clean
• 👉 Register your clean here: (NOTE: if you are under 18 you will need an adult to register for you) https://www.sas.org.uk/plastic-pollution/million-mile-clean/register-a-clean/
• 📸 Send them your photos and evidence once you have completed your clean – we would also LOVE to know where you have been litter picking so we can share about it on our social media channels – so if you do a litter pick, please let us know where using the contact form. This also allows us to coordinate locations for Businesses to litter pick, as we can sign post them to areas that have not been picked recently.

Get involved in litter picking

If you want to get involved in litter picking then this map shows the locations we know have been picked over the last 3 months.

It will be updated on a 3-monthly basis.

The highlighted roads have already been picked so as you head out, please consider picking some of the roads that have not been highlighted.

After your litter pick, please use the form on this page to let us know where you have been and we will add it to the map the next time we update it.

Open a larger version of the map here