Reverse fly-tipping

I noticed a call on the village Facebook page for volunteers to help clear up waste that had been fly-tipped in Bryn Hafod y Wern. I like that quarry! And I get sad when it gets defaced with rubbish. So I decided I would go. Additionally, the call came from Harri, a chap who seems to be associated with a disproportionate number of laudable initiatives in the area. I had met him back in the days because he had been handing out soup in front of the pop-up shop that sold local produce, in order to draw attention to the regional anti-food-waste scheme: Pantri Pesda. He is, as far as I know, also associated with renewable energy in the valley. And he had invited me to a nice campfire in the woods.

On the day I put my steel-toed boots into my bag; maybe they would be needed. And my gloves; certainly these would be needed. And, of course, food and drink. And that way I biked up on my old mountain bike. I had hoped to be greeted by throngs, but when I got to the agreed meeting point there was nobody there! I parked my bike and reached for my phone. I thought of phoning Harri, but before I even could, I heard a car approach. It was Harri himself! So I had not misremembered the date or time. And soon afterwards another car approached, with two gentlemen in it. One of them I had seen before; he has been known to sell jam on the local farmers' market. And then another lady on bicycle appeared. I had seen her before as well. It's a small world.

Everyone there spoke Welsh. It was good half day of practice! I know that Harri will only speak English when he has a specific reason for it, and I appreciate that. That everybody else was that way inclined was a pleasant surprise. Barely a word of English was spoken during the entire time we were there.

We set to work! Harri had brought pickers and bags. Soon I was worrying about how to remove all the garbage we collected. We only had two small cars there, and we were pulling entire fridge freezers out of the shrubs! But Harri reassured me that the council would pick up whatever we would get ready for them by the side of the gravel road. That was a relief.

There were even two random passers-by who joined in for a while.

It starts piling up. Notice tiny litter pickers in the background.

We had also seen lots of asbestos. My initial response to that had been to ignore it; it is dangerous stuff, and I suspect that the council would not except it. But Harri said they have location in Caernarfon where you can bring it and they can process it, so he suggested we tackle it anyway. We just were careful, and made a separate file for it. It shouldn't get mixed with the other waste!

At some point the two gentlemen had to leave. The other lady-with-bike, who was called Mary, and Harri and I evaluated the situation. We still had energy to go on for a bit, but I was really craving coffee by then. I had brought a small flask! But we could share. And Harri had brought chocolate. An excellent combination. We sat in the sun looking at the beautiful view and life was good. But then we went back at it. We had decided that the area we had spent the morning in was now mostly cleared. It was time to move to another location where Harry had spotted a lot of rubbish!

Break view

We climbed over a wall and started to clear that area. We got a bit disheartened; if you walked in a few metres you saw just how much there was. Partial furniture, a plastic Christmas three, a car tyre, curtain rails, a lawnmower. And looks of smaller stuff! We decided to we could not clear all of that in this session. We probably needed to organise an additional one to remove the rest. And we were getting tired and hungry. And we had run out of bags! So we called it a day.

Our afternoon pile

I think we made a serious difference! I hope the council quickly picks up everything we collected. And I have no illusions about the fly-tippers now somehow respecting the quarry; inevitably, a similar amount of rubbish will reappear. But for now it looks a lot better, and those of us who were there have got a little bit of faith in humanity back.

We said goodbye, and I steered my bike uphill. I had decided I can combine this endeavour with my daily exercise! And I was hungry. So I stopped at the nearest spot that looked suitable for lunch, put on my shorts (it was warm!), and had my sandwiches. And then I biked home. A successful mission!

After rubbish lunch