Litter Picking Group
- Friends of Oxleas Woodlands 2
- 8 hours ago
- 2 min read
Eltham Common & Wood
Saturday, 7th February,2026
This month, we returned to what is, perhaps, our biggest litter hotspot - Eltham Common and its woods, descending from Severndroog Castle Car Park.
An amazing 25 people attended the session, despite the drizzly, grey weather, demonstrating their dedication to protecting the woodlands. As we approached our meeting place, the clouds began to part and the skies brightened a little - a good sign for our session. The large group enabled us not only to pick within the woods and on the common itself but to extend our pick to a wider area, including: Severndroog Car Park; the open, green areas adjacent to the MUGA sports area; the access road from Severndroog Castle to Shooters Hill;
and also the Shooters Hill roadside embankments, from the bus shelter down to the common.
In total we collected:
43 full sacks of general litter
2 dead Christmas Trees (why?)
6 Footballs (some burst, others returned to the pitch)
1 bike tyre
1 broken property sale board
Section of a pallet
Small bits of kitchen units
1 x bucket
6 large gas canisters
Yellow metal box plate of unknown purpose/origin
Several other large, immovable items which will be reported to RBG.
Just some of the rubbish collected at different stages. Other sacks were left for collection in other locations.
Perhaps the most humorous finding came from an aluminium food tray with 50p piece sitting proudly in the middle, only to discover on lifting it that it was a plastic coin! What a disappointment!
The time flew, and some litter remains, but what a difference we made and what a lucky group we were (once again) with the weather, which remained dry during our session and only started raining again as we returned to the car park.
Some quick goodbyes in the rain meant only a handful of us posed for our end of session photo, proud of another 50 hours spent improving the woodlands!
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