A group of litter pickers in Hillsborough have come together to combat the ongoing issue of fly tipping in the area.

On Saturday the 9 March the Loxley and Wisewood Litter Pickers met with the Hillsborough Green Party for one of their regular litter picks. One main objective of the pick was to combat a fly tip that had accumulated at the start of Dykes Hall Road.

Eamon Ward, 64, of Eskdale Road said: “People start fly tipping and it accumulates.”

He said that as a result of this it was important to hide the fly tip as quickly as possible before reporting it to Streets Ahead.

Streets Ahead is the £2 billion contract for the maintenance of the streets and highways  in Sheffield.

Loxley and Wisewood Litter Pickers meet every week to pick litter. Joanne Lee, 54, of Loxley Road said: “The weekly meets are impactful.

“You chat to people and realise quite a lot of people are also helping, you’ re part of a community.”

These litter picks began roughly three years ago during the Covid pandemic as it was a legal way to go outside and get fresh air.

Ann Parkin, 64, of Watersmeet Road said: “An impact is seen on the smaller roads, but the busy roads are always dirty.

“There aren’t many of us, but the main impact is Sheffield Litter Pickers that started up and around Sheffield. They’re an amazing organisation.”

Sheffield Litter Pickers is a group on Facebook for people to share information about litter picking activity. This includes posting their own successes as well as promoting and advertising litter picking events.

While out litter picking the group have found lots of things, including a bag of hundreds of work gloves, bottles of urine, toys furniture and equipment used for cannabis grows, which is often repurposed to be used in allotments.

Mr Ward said: “We deliberately get stuff to go in the brown bin, we like to see things recycled.”