By Jenny Baker

Sunday morning on 30th June, another conservation day dawned warm but overcast on a peaceful Eastern Road Nature Reserve. Everywhere you looked plants were quietly rushing to reach their full potential. The brambles, now growing up to three inches a day, were extending their thorny limbs across paths without prejudice.

Action was definitely needed to tame this wild growth which was without apology encroaching along all the paths. Thankfully some truly amazing volunteers arrived to help us with this task. It was a hot, sticky and sometimes prickly task but by lopping, clipping and cutting we finally mastered the out-of-control vegetation and opened up another path. Our wonderful volunteers successfully wrestled with mother nature and treated the car park to a much-needed spruce.

You may already know that Eastern Road Nature Reserve is a former landfill site. On Village Day we displayed some plastic items that had been buried in the reserve for 50 years. Although battered and squashed, these items had not degraded at all. In fact, the predecimal (1971) prices could clearly be seen on some of the plastic bottles.

So, we asked the community on Village Day to write a personal pledge to help the environment on a piece of bunting. We have now proudly displayed all the bunting in the car park for everyone to see. Next time you visit the reserve, do take a moment to read the pledges and see if you’re inspired to take action too. Thank you to everyone who took the time to contribute!

And finally, a huge thank you to you, the community, who support our work in so many ways. Be sure to check out our new website www.easternroadnaturereserve.org.uk where you can sign up to our newsletter and keep up to date with all our latest news and events.

Did you know?

• The amount of plastic ever made is 8.3 billion tonnes, of which only 9% has been recycled and half of which was produced in the past 13 years alone.
• In the UK, we use 5 million tonnes of plastic each year - the equivalent weight of 100 Titanic ships - but only recycle 17% of it. We throw away more plastic per person than any other country in the world, except the US.

The good news…
• The amount of plastic going to UK landfill has dropped by two-thirds since 2006
• We’ve gone from using 7.6 billion single-use plastic bags per year to just 133 million thanks to the introduction of the plastic bag charge.
Don’t forget to Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, and Recycle!