The Cleaner Canals Campaign
Our canals matter. Read our plan to deliver cleaner canals.
The Challenge
Bins are essential for cleaner canals.
Shockingly, many stretches of our canal network have no bins at all. These towpaths end up littered with unsightly and harmful piles of rubbish. This is your chance to help change that.
Harm to people: An estimated 10 million people use the 2,000 miles of canal cared for by the Canal and River Trust every year. We want every one of those wonderful people to enjoy our canals as much as possible. Ugly piles of rubbish all along the network are standing in our way.
Harm to nature: Millions of birds, fish and other wildlife call our canals home. We want wildlife to thrive on our canals but our coffee cups, plastic pints and shopping bags are a risk to wildlife wellbeing. Cleaner canals are an imperative for nature.
Whether you live in Wigan or Worcester, Camden or Coventry, Leicester or Leeds, we want cleaner and more nature-friendly canals for all.
Join the campaign today.
Our plan for cleaner canals
Our plan is simple. Canals that have enough bins are cleaner canals.
Some areas have enough bins but many do not. We need to take action:
Our plan in brief
Step 1: Research
Find out which areas do not have the bin provision we need to keep our canals clean.
Step 2: Recruit
Raise awareness and recruit others to join us in challenging the Canal and River Trust on their failure to keep our canals clean.
Step 3: Reform
Take our case to Parliament to require the Canal and River Trust to deliver sufficient bins on our canal towpaths by law.
1. Research
This is the best way you can help us get our campaign off the ground. If you live in an urban area and regularly use your local canal, please send a picture of any litter on your local canal to cleanercanals@gmail.com or message us on Instagram.
This will help us to build a picture of the areas on our urban canal network that have a particular problem with litter.
Please include the following in your email or message:
Pictures of the litter you have seen
Location
Confirmation of whether bins are provided on the towpath in that area
We will use your report to build a national picture of inadequate towpath bin provision and share your pictures on our socials to help build awareness of the issue.
Send us pictures of the litter problems in your area like this one on the Regent’s Canal near Hackney
2. Recruit
We won’t make a difference unless friends, colleagues and neighbours know about our campaign. Help boost our campaign by sharing content with others.
Every like, follow and share will help us reach a wider audience. We are more powerful together!
If you have campaigning experience and would like to help, please get in touch with us by email at: cleanercanals@gmail.com
3. Reform
In 2012, the old British Waterways was replaced with the Canal and River Trust which is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) set up as a charitable trust.
The Canal and River Trust inherited the statutory duties of British Waterways under the The British Waterways Board (Transfer of Functions) Order 2012. The Trust receives tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers money every year and yet they are failing to deliver adequate bin provision on our towpaths.
Our ultimate goal: We want to change the law so the Canal and River Trust are legally required to put an adequate number of bins on urban stretches of our canal network to deliver cleaner canals.
Let’s work together to deliver cleaner canals. Subscribe and follow us to join our campaign today.
Who are The Cleaner Canals Campaign?
The Cleaner Canals Campaign is an informal and apolitical pressure group of like-minded volunteers who are working together to secure cleaner canals.