How to conduct a litter pick

Get your hands dirty in three easy stages:

Stage one: Planning the event

1. Decide where you want to carry out your litter pick. Contact landowners - town, district or county council, farmers, or local estate owners - to make sure you have legal access to the area.

2. Carry out a full risk assessment of the area - see the panel on the right of this page.

3. Make a site map. Note your route and identify locations for first aid, toilets, public phones, useful amenities, break areas and so on.

4. Decide when you will do the pick up.

5. Decide how you will present the clean-up to your volunteers. It can be a straight forward litter pick, or you can have a theme or set a challenge.

6. Rally your volunteers! Try to get support from other groups and individuals to make this a community event. Use posters to advertise the event in shops, libraries and schools. Posters to advertise your cleanup event can be obtained free from CPRE, click here to send an email request detailing how many you need and the delivery address. 

7. Work out what equipment you will need for the event.  For example, gloves, wheelbarrows and refuse bags. Contact the Cleansing or Environmental Health department of your local council who should be able to provide litter picking gadgets, refuse sacks or maybe a skip.

8. Brief volunteers before the event. Make sure they know where and when to meet, what clothes to wear and which equipment to bring.

9. Arrange for waste disposal. Contact your local borough or district council, or dispose of the rubbish yourselves. Make sure you get specialist help for heavy objects.

10. Contact CPRE for free high visibility vests and, for a short period recycled refuse sacks kindly donated by Cromwell Polythene Ltd.

11. Consider getting adequate insurance cover, in case of accidental damage or injury during the event.

12. Get publicity for the event. Call the media or write a brief press release about the clean-up and send it to them.

Stage two: The day of the litter pick

1. Inform and instruct volunteers. Identify team leaders and make sure volunteers know about health and safety risks, who is responsible for first aid, how to use equipment, the route, timings and so on.

2. Provide volunteers with high visibility vests.

3. Be considerate. Do not disturb animals or damage plants. Don’t remove “natural” rubbish like logs, stones and weeds – they can be “home” to animals. Don’t try and release entangled animals; call the RSPCA if you come across any. Don’t interfere with people not involved in the litter pick.

4. Avoid danger. Make sure all volunteers, particularly children, are aware of what not to pick up. Drug-related litter, for example. Note their location and tell the council.

Stage three: After the event

1. Report the result of the pick. Note the amount of rubbish collected and include this in a press release, or tell your local council.

2. Try to recycle as much of the rubbish as possible.

Download this text