Treading Water                    A River Clean-up Adventure!

I’ve been out on a paddleboard with friends on various stretches of the river and it’s been a different experience every time. Always enjoyable. Often thrilling. An incredibly uplifting experience ... for those of us who like that sort of thing! 

So, just how bad is this?

Out of curiosity, I did a quick search on the internet on this topic which revealed that tyres are a major source of microplastics in rivers and oceans. Tyres also apparently contain chemical toxins that can be highly lethal to fish, and pose a serious threat to other aquatic species. 

Crikey! It seems that tyres in the river are a much bigger problem than I’d imagined!

Someone should do something ...

At the start of the year I'd joined Paddle Cymru’s Access and Environment Committee and, after sharing what I'd seen in the Mawddach with the team during one of our meetings, I felt encouraged to take action. I started by contacting the organisations which I believed should be responsible for removing the tyres. The response wasn’t great. In fact, it was shockingly poor! 

Undeterred by this initial lack of success, I decided to broaden my approach by exploring options for more of a DIY approach.  I reached out to Caroline Dawson (aka SUPlass) to find out more about her experiences with River cleanups. Caroline is passionate about looking after the environment, and I knew from her social media posts that she'd previously organised cleanups on the River Dee. During our conversation she was very supportive about what I told her I was looking to achieve, and gave me lots of good advice on how to go about organising a cleanup. Her 'Top Tip' was to consider this as a multi-agency project. She intimated that I would maximise the chances of success if I took ownership for coordinating between the various agencies myself. 

The makings of a plan

After doing some on-line research, ‘cold calling’ on the phone, and also some ‘door knocking’ in person, I found that everyone I spoke to agreed with the idea of organising a working party of volunteers to get the tyres removed from the river and disposed of in an environmentally responsible manner. 

The key parties which agreed to provide support were;

● David Williams of Gwynedd County Council's Fly Tipping team; who would provide a truck and crew to collect and disposal of the tyres and any other debris that the working party collected

● Robat Davis of Eryri (aka Snowdonia) National Park; who would loan two wheelbarrows for use by the working party, plus permission to use the local car park, and also provide an area where we could stack the tyres we extracted from the river pending collection by the council's team

Getting it all together

Having got the key agencies on-board, I now needed to recruit some volunteers to do the work. Firstly, I had to set a date for the work. Taking into account information regarding the local tide times, and also some advice from Gaynor the toll bridge about busy times to avoid, I decided to aim for the first Saturday in July.  

Next, I posted a couple of ads on social media to raise awareness of the issue and to ask for volunteers. The initial response was great, with 16 people formally registering their interest in helping.

As well as volunteers, we also needed tools and other equipment to assist with the extraction and transportation of the tyres. Although some of the tyres were up on the surface of the shore others were sunken into the riverbed. We needed tools to dig them out plus some way of transporting them to the pick-up point. People generously offered the loan of a variety of equipment, including:

• a tandem sit-on-top kayak - to use as a barge

• paddleboards - complete with paddles, buoyancy aids and leashes

• spades and work gloves 

• wheelbarrows

With some help and guidance from Phil Stone, Places to Paddle Manager at Paddle Cymru, I was able to assess the risks involved in doing the work and to build an effective plan to manage and mitigate them. One key risk was that the riverbank can be very slippery where we planned to launch and land, which would be a significant hazard to participants. To help mitigate this risk I decided to take along a couple of pieces of artificial grass (left over from another project) to use as mats, and some tent pegs to stake them down.

You can’t control the weather!

As time got nearer to the planned date it became apparent that the forecast wind strength - blowing straight up the river from the west - would be too strong for the work to be carried out safely!  While this was incredibly frustrating all the hard work that went into arranging everything, the safety of those who had volunteered their time was the most important factor. So ... gutted ... I had to postpone the date.

Rescheduling the date for the working party proved problematic too. Gaynor strongly recommended that we avoid the busy school holiday period as there’s a big increase in traffic in the area during that time. However, I also knew that if I left it too long before rescheduling then the weather would deteriorate, and would prevent us from doing the work. So, it was either going to be September or sometime never!

I settled for the first Saturday in September. Because the river is tidal, we needed to choose a suitable start time for the work - once the river level had fallen sufficiently for us to access the tyres on the riverbed.  Tide times for that day weren’t ideal, and effectively meant that we were looking at a 1:00 p.m. start. At least the light should still be quite good into the evening, though, which would help if we needed to finish late. 

I polled the original list of volunteers to see who could make that date. Only half of them said they could make it that day.  Things weren’t looking so hopeful now, and I was seriously considering giving up!  

Although the workforce would be smaller, there was still a realistic chance of us moving a few tyres - so I decided to press ahead. If the weather forecast nearer the date wasn’t favourable, and we had to postpone again, then I’d aim to maybe try again the next year. 

The run up to the big day

Thankfully, this time the ‘wind gods’ smiled on us! The forecast breeze was stronger than I’d ideally have liked but, because it would be blowing from the south this time, my local knowledge told me that Cader Idris would provide a lot of shelter from the wind for us. To make sure we’d all be ok, I would go to the site in the morning to check how things were looking before making the final 'Go / No Go' decision.

Another complication was that my list of volunteers was slowly shrinking. People have busy lives and sometimes other things can get in the way. A last-ditch social media post failed to drum up any more volunteers, and with just six of us now available for the planned date I was getting a bit worried about how much we could realistically achieve.

When we arrived on location we found that the weather was warm and a little overcast - with a gentle breeze, puctuated by the occasional stroger gust. That would work ... game on! 

While we were unloading our kit the news came through that two of our volunteers were unable to make it … so the team was now down to four!  Looking on the positive side … even though there were fewer of us now, we would hopefully still be able to get at least a few tyres out from the river. Better than nothing! 

The working party 

The final four met up at 1pm for introductions and to agree our plan of action; 

• Myself; Chris Hale, Paddleboarding Coach at SUPeryri based in Bryncrug, Gwynedd

• Paul Fear, Active Citizenship Lead for an Alternative Provision school 

• Mark Considine, a sound-proofing consultant (and budding artist) who lives overlooking the river in Penmaenpool

• Jen Warne, a legal secretary who lives in nearby Llwyngwril

We talked about our individual preferences for the type of tasks we were willing to take on. Paul, Mark and opted to head upriver and begin the task of extracting the tyres. Meanwhile, Jen would stay on dry land, under the toll bridge, ready to receive the tyres when we brought them ashore. She would then barrow them to a suitable holding area where they would stay until they could be loaded into a council pickup truck later in the afternoon.

Paul, Mark and I launched onto the river. Paul was on his SUP, and I was also on mine - towing Mark who sat in the kayak, along with our tools. The tide was ebbing away, and the water was quite shallow by this time so we carefully paddled round the deeper channel along the outside of the bay, then passing under the spectacular Toll Bridge and up river to the place where the tyres had collected along the river bed.

The tyres were spread out along a ½ km section of the river which had a large sand bank in the middle, flanked by two deeper channels. We landed our vessels and then, while we walked along the river bank, I pointed out to Paul and Mark where I’d seen some tyres in the mud.

Wasting no time, we got stuck in to extracting the tyres. Where the water level had already dropped sufficiently to expose the muddy river bank a few of them were easily accessible, sitting proud of the surface and were fairly easy to lift. 

Others though, were much more embedded into the mud and needed digging out. We found that, although the sediment was compacted inside the tyres making them too heavy to pull out in one go, we were able to use our spades and grappling hook to work them free and then swill the sediment off each tyre by swinging it back and forth in the river. This process released clouds of very smelly sediment which stank a lot like dirty drains!  However, the clouds of sediment cleared quickly … falling back to the riverbed in only a short amount of time.

By around 5pm we'd effectively tackled all of the tyres we could find, so decided to call it a day. 

We loaded up the last dozen tyres and set off to meet up with Jen again. When we got back to our landing spot, we found that Aled had also arrived with the truck, and was already busy loading up. 

Later, Paul and I headed back out onto the water to tackle the silver birch tree that was stuck under the bridge. The water level was rising fast now so we needed to move quickly.  A couple of strategically placed cuts though the tree trunk using a battery powered chainsaw meant that the tree was now freed from where it had been lodged over the summer months.  We then returned to shore to load up all of our kit before heading home for dinner. 

The general feeling amongst the team at the end of the day was a huge sense of achievement, coupled with a healthy dose of fatigue!

Some thoughts from Jen about this project:

“This activity holds personal significance for me, as I spent 16 years working at Abergwynant Trekking Centre, where I took visitors on pony rides along the estuary. Over the years, I developed a deep connection to the area, and it has since become a place close to my heart.

Living locally in Llwyngwril, I have always felt a strong sense of community. This, combined with my love for the natural beauty of the estuary, motivated me to take action and assist in the removal of the tyres, which were posing a threat to the local ecosystem.

While the task was physically demanding, I felt a great sense of satisfaction knowing that my contributions were helping to restore the estuary to its natural state. The sense of teamwork and the shared goal of preserving the environment made the experience all the more rewarding. It was heartening to see the positive impact of our combined efforts, and I left the site with a sense of pride in what we had accomplished.

Overall, the day was not only an opportunity to give back to an area I hold dear but also a reminder of the importance of community-driven environmental initiatives. I look forward to continuing to contribute in whatever way I can to the preservation of this beautiful part of our local landscape."

Gratitude

I’d like to extend my heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported this project - particularly to Paul, Jen and Mark who did the ‘heavy lifting’. 

             Together, we achieved something worthwhile - helping to preserve the health of this beautiful river.