As a community hub, the University is committed to running four Trash Free Trails events per year for staff, students, and the local community to attend.

As part of Sustainability Week, the University’s Sustainability team ran a launch event with the Canal & River Trust and Carbon Jacked to clean up Loughborough’s river and canal trails. The event was a success with 50 students attending from a variety of AU clubs, removing litter from a 3-mile span of the Loughborough Canal. The group successfully removed over 2,000 items, totalling 73kg of waste. All the items were uploaded to the Trash Free Trails database as part of their citizen science project, contributing valuable data to the State of Our Trails Report.

Elliott Brown, Sustainability Manager, commented: “Our new partnership with Trash Free Trails is a great way for the University to support the regional community and protect our eco-systems with simple actions. Every piece of litter picked up contributes to cleaner trails, healthier ecosystems, and a more vibrant community. It was a pleasure to see such a great turnout by our students to support our launch event and the impact their efforts had on our local waterways.”

Keep an eye on the University events page for upcoming Trash Free Trails events where we'll continue our efforts to clean and protect our local trails.

If you would like to run your own Trash Free Trails event, please email waste@lboro.ac.uk.