World Rivers Day is a celebration of the world’s waterways and helps to raise awareness of the many benefits of rivers and aims to encourage people to become more engaged with their local watercourse.
In 2005, the United Nations launched the Water For Life Decade to improve engagement and appreciation for our water resources. From this, World Rivers Day was established in response to a proposal initiated by Mark Angelo, an internationally recognised river advocate. Rivers around the world face a variety of challenges, and only with our active involvement can we ensure their health is preserved in the future.
To celebrate World Rivers Day 2022, BART, alongside South Gloucestershire Council and Bristol City Council hosted two river cleans on the 24th and 25th September along the Bristol Frome. An army of volunteers pulled out so much litter including bikes, cones, tyres, along with lots of bags of rubbish!
Unfortunately, a lot of the items that were pulled out of the river and along its banks had been purposefully dumped. Other items may have blown out of nearby bins or from roads, accidently ending up polluting the River Frome. However the litter ends up in our rivers, it is vital to remove as it pollutes our watercourses and can have detrimental effects on river wildlife. The impacts of rubbish along our waterways also degrades the quality of green and blue spaces for local communities to enjoy.
Thank you to our wonderful and dedicated volunteers for all of their hard work, the Environment Agency and Bristol Avon Catchment Partnership for funding our river cleans, and our partners, South Gloucestershire Council, Bristol City Council and Yate Town Council.
