Dear readers — Saturdays for Dispatch writers tend to involve gulping coffee, scouring the papers for interesting stories, and avoiding phone calls and WhatsApp messages from dodgy folks we might have annoyed by exposing their exploits in these pages. We are ashamed to admit that neither of our two-person team has ever thought to spend our weekends tromping through trash and grabbing garbage, all in the name of civic duty.
That might change, however, after reading today’s story by Shaun Patrick Hand. He donned a high vis jacket and headed out on the streets of Erdington and Digbeth with Brum’s bravest. These are litter picking groups — some with thousands of members — who regularly face bottles of piss and drug paraphernalia (and the occasional beef with national street-tidying organisations) just to keep the place a little bit cleaner. Only to get back out the following week and do it all again. It’s a cracking story.
Saturday morning, 8:30 am. I’m off to Erdington. To go litter-picking. Maybe it’s the sleep deprivation talking, but I’m really looking forward to it.
I became aware of the group I’m volunteering with a year ago when I saw a handful of people cleaning the verges beneath Spaghetti Junction. At first, I assumed they were doing community service, but then I clocked the name on their hi-vis: Erdington Litter Busters.
After that, I regularly started noticing folk armed with grabbers and rubbish bags. Some in groups, others solo, many posting before-and-afters of their work on social media. Not just locally, either: one popular (and strangely satisfying) Instagram account stars a guy jet-washing road signs down south.
Intrigued by this proactive, seemingly apolitical movement and assuming that, in Brum, it was linked to the bin strikes, I found the Erdington Litter Busters on Facebook (you never forget your first love) and asked to join one of their community litter-picks.
Forty-eight hours later, armed with a grabber from the local hardware shop, I’m pulling into the Erdington YMCA car park. A small group have already gathered, clad in hoodies, old jeans and sensible shoes. Within minutes, I’m being welcomed, handed a hi-vis and a bag secured to a plastic hoop, and having a conversation about heated gilets.
Directing operations is Ruth, a retired teacher. With the efficiency of her former profession, she assigns groups and routes and we’re off. I’m with her and a lady called Nadine. We’re to head to Six Ways, down Summer Road, then up a couple of side streets, with everyone meeting at a café on the High Street afterwards to talk rubbish over tea and biscuits.
We’ve barely left the car park before I’ve grabbered my first litter (a Red Bull can. You never forget your first pick) and wrestled a bottle of tonic wine from a hedge. At Six Ways, we’re confronted by a trail of 1980s Trivial Pursuit cards scattered 100 yards along the pavement and up people’s driveways. (Sample question: Which country has 11 time zones? Answer: The Soviet Union).
Conversation is sparse, as everyone works at different paces, and we soon spread out, but I manage to ask Nadine about her motivation for getting involved. Growing up in Dorset, she explains, litter-picking was just something she did. Settled in Brum, she discovered the ELB and got back into it. “It can be quite meditative,” she explains. I quickly grasp why: it’s a similar satisfaction to finishing a jigsaw or pairing odd socks; that same sense of bringing order to chaos. The “thank yous" from passers-by help, too. Who said Erdington wasn’t a community?
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