Walk for WasteAid 2018 raises over £10k

Walk for WasteAid 2018, a charity event to raise funds for waste management charity WasteAid, raised more than £10,000 for projects in developing countries.

The event saw more than 100 participants turn out for the 25-kilometre walk across London on Saturday 23 June, crossing back and forth across the River Thames over a series of the capital’s most famous bridges, beginning at Putney Bridge and finishing at the iconic Tower Bridge.

WasteAid is a UK-registered charity set up by waste management professionals to tackle the global waste crisis. Two billion people do not have their waste collected and three billion do not have a decent disposal site; as a consequence, waste ends up in rivers and ultimately the oceans, with around 70 per cent of the world’s marine plastic pollution originating in developing countries with inadequate or non-existent waste management systems.

To tackle this, WasteAid works with communities in these countries to address the root causes of marine plastic pollution, sharing replicable waste management strategies and skills to enable them to reduce their waste and create self-sufficient recycling businesses.

WasteAid has gone from strength to strength in recent times, with last year seeing CIWM commission a toolkit from WasteAid for community waste management in low- and middle-income countries. Launched in October 2017, the ‘Making Waste Work’ toolkit contains essential skills and techniques to help communities recycle up to 80 per cent of their waste – while a joint report from CIWM and WasteAid entitled ‘From the land to the sea’ called for more overseas aid for waste management in order to tackle marine plastic pollution.

Read more: WasteAid UK: Helping communities tackle the waste crisis in West Africa

This year’s event was the third Walk for WasteAid, with previous years seeing supporters climb Mount Snowdon and Scafell Pike in the name of better waste management.

The walkers started at Putney Bridge and were hosted at Vauxhall City Farm for lunch. Street bin manufacturer Wybone provided litter pickers so walkers could clean the streets of London on their way, and Veolia collected the waste at the end of the walk.

Everyone who made it across the finishing line received a 3D printed medal made from recycled plastic by engineering company Singular MARS, with recycled ribbon donated by TRAID (Textile Reuse and International Development). London food waste fighters Day Old provided snacks at the end of the event using food that would otherwise have gone to landfill.

Commenting on the success of this year’s Walk for WasteAid, the charity’s Head of Communications Zoë Lenkiewicz said: “Waste management is a hugely neglected area around the world. Our annual fundraiser draws attention to the issue and the positive work being done by WasteAid to share recycling know-how with poorer communities, and we’d like to say a massive thank you to everyone involved in this year’s successful Walk for WasteAid.”

Mike Webster, CEO of WasteAid and winner of this year’s Resource Hot 100, added: “Walk for WasteAid was a great success – 120 people came along and crossed 15 bridges over 25 kilometres and crucially raised over £10,000. This will help support some of our forthcoming projects in Africa that we’ll be announcing in the next few weeks. It’s fantastic how people who work in the sector, as well as an increasing number of the public, are really getting on board with our fundamental message – that everyone deserves a clean and healthy place to grow up in.”

You can read more about WasteAid’s work around the world on the charity’s website.