SUPsect Water Wombles: Paddleboard Litter-Picks
The SUPsect Water Wombles is our paddleboard litter-picking group – since 2019, we’ve been organising regular monthly river-cleans and beach-cleans focussed on our local waterways. The aim is to clean up our local waters and shorelines, especially those we paddle regularly. Check out our Facebook group: SUPsect Water Wombles…
Thanks to Brown & Carroll London for providing our clean-up materials for five years now!
Click below for details of our next pick (which will update in the week approaching each event – dates, locations etc always subject to change as weather dictates!)
Our river-cleans and beach-cleans are conducted both on paddleboards and/or on foot, so that they can be supported by non-paddlers too. In summertime (and as deep into autumn and winter as weather allows) we tend to pick from our boards, with buckets tied or bungeed onto the nose and using grabbers alongside our paddles. We try to arrange one pick a month in the summer paddling season, usually the first Saturday of the month if possible (although dates do change due to weather and/or other commitments). In deep winter, when it’s no longer comfortable or safe to be picking from our boards, we switch to the banks and collect on foot – usually the first Sunday of each month if viable. To find out more, check out the next pick as featured on this page – if you’re competent on you paddleboard (ie; comfortable standing and easily able to steer, stop, turn around as necessary) please do come and join us, any questions just email waterwombles@supsect.com (and/or if you need a lesson to get confident on your board first, check out our Learn to SUP courses).
In summer, picking from our boards, we tend to focus on the River Chelmer with picks from central Chelmsford, Sandford Mill, Mill House, Paper Mill Lock and even Maldon. Coastal picking is only really viable on the top of pretty high tides, but we are sometimes able to hit estuary spots on the River Crouch from Hullbridge to Battlesbridge, or Two Tree Island on springy enough tides. In winter, we’re able to clear the shorelines that we can’t reach from the water – along the Crouch (Hullbridge to Battlesbridge), Two Tree Island, plus Chalkwell, Thorpe Bay etc as necessary.
