Cleaning up Salford: The locals leading the fight against litter

Littering and fly-tipping have plagued Salford’s streets for years, but locals feel it is now worse than ever. Eloise Parry joined one of Walkden in Blooms’ community led litter picks to talk to the people taking Salford’s litter crisis into their own hands.

Images: Author

The scrape of metal against concrete cuts through the quiet of Memorial Street in Walkden. A litter picker hooks the ring of a faded Coca-Cola can, and lifts it from a pile of damp leaves, water spilling back into the road. Just along the curb, a black bin bag has split open, decorating the pavement with crisp packets, soggy cardboard, and a gutted tin of spaghetti hoops. As traffic hums past, seemingly unaware, tens of these hi-vis clad volunteers pace the streets of Walkden, armed with bin bags, litter pickers, and a common goal of taking their community back from litter.

“It’s about having a bit of civic pride,” says Paul Whitelegg, chair of the group, “It’s the community saying enough is enough, what can we do?”

Though the task ahead of them is heavy, the mood amongst these volunteers is unexpectedly light. Some chat whilst poking their pickers into litter strewn hedges, others laughter blends with the clink of bottles dropped into bags. One volunteer, Kanna Saxon, is scratching at a pile of cigarette butts abandoned at the base of a tree.

“These have plastic in them,” she tells me, “If we don’t pick them up, they will never break down on their own.”

Across the city, scenes like these are beginning to define Salford, as litter takes over our pathways, and fly-tipping haunts our side streets. For volunteers like Kanna, this is the frontline of the litter crisis taking hold of Salford.

Image: Unsplash

Environmental neglect is far from a new issue in Salford, with both littering and fly tipping presenting themselves as increasingly visible issues over the last five years: a movement that reflects a larger, national trend. The Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs logged 1.15 million fly-tipping incidents across the country in the last year, comprising largely of household waste, marking a six percent increase on the year previous. Locally, the city of Salford recorded 7,610 fly tipping incidents in the last year alone: a fifteen percent increase on the previous year, costing local taxpayers upwards of £400,000 in removal and clean up fees, funds that could otherwise have supported essential local services. This mounting pressure on clean-up services, combined with budget constraints, means responsibility for tackling litter is often left to fall on residents.

For Walkden in Bloom, it is the people of Walkden who show up month after month to try to confront the litter on their streets. Chair Paul Whitelegg says the group began with a single social media post.

“We put a message on Facebook asking what people would think about tidying Walkden up and getting some flowers back into the area, and we were absolutely bombarded with replies,” he says.

“When you see a reaction like that - when you know people want it -it’s just about finding the people who will get things going.”

Image: Author

From this overwhelming response, Walkden in Bloom was formed in April 2025 with a simple aim: to organise regular litter picks and bring pride back into the town's spaces.

Paul is mindful not to refer to members as ‘volunteers’. He worries the label makes it sound like a commitment that many would turn down.

“If you call someone a volunteer, it feels like responsibility,” he explains. “We just invite people to join in. Come along, do what you can, have a chat. That’s how you get people involved.”

Clearly, this approach works. Walkden in Blooms’ organised litter picks now bring in 20-30 people each month, often joined by staff from local shops and cafes.

Kanna Saxon is one of those regulars, turning up with her son, Oscar, whenever she can. “The litter picks are so good for the area,” she says. “It’s such a lovely place to live; the house prices are going up, the schools are great, and now you can actually see people taking pride in the community. That’s important.”

She remembers wondering why other areas had active groups when Walkden did not. “You think, why don’t we have something like this?” she says, pausing while Oscar drops a scrunched paper bag into her bin bag. “Then you realise it just takes someone standing up and starting it.”

Walkden in Bloom goes beyond its monthly picks, providing businesses in the centre with bin bags, litter pickers, hi-vis vests and gloves. If litter appears outside, anyone is able to head inside and have all the equipment they need play a part in the solution, right then and there.

For this group, this openness, accessibility, and lack of barriers have a huge role to play in its growth.

“It keeps growing because it’s a good, friendly chat,” Paul says. “Afterwards we have a brew, chat, and enjoy the fruits of what we’ve done.”

According to Paul, the impact of this is contagious: “Once litter is on the floor, more litter follows,” he says. “But when people see others out collecting it, that spreads too.”

The work of Walkden in Bloom is undeniably uplifting, but it highlights a reality less optimistic: the rubbish keeps coming back. The volume of litter on Salford’s streets isn’t borne of a single reason, but rather the product of several overlapping pressures. Salford City Council remains officially responsible for the cleanliness of streets, but is overstretched and cannot always keep pace with the volume of waste Salford produces. Even council provided infrastructure falls short, with too few public bins, and too few household bin collections.

“Then you realise it just takes someone standing up and starting it.”

Lurking beneath the councils’ shortfalls is something more brazen: illegal waste disposal. ‘Too-good-to-be-true’ waste disposal adverts circulate online from white van operators, who offer cheap collections of waste, only for the rubbish to be dumped illegally, often in backroads, or beside communal bins. This in itself contributes to a quieter, cultural shift. When a street or alley already looks uncared for, people are more likely to add to what is there: rubbish attracts more rubbish. Together, it is these pressures that feed the inundation of litter in Salford: the very cycle that Walkden in Bloom are trying to break.

Come 11am, the group have filled over a dozen bags. The sun has broken through the grey morning cloud to hit a small patch of pavement, now gleaming where leaves and cans once lay. They leave the full bags outside to be collected, and head inside for their well-earned cups of tea.

Salford needs greater council action, improved infrastructure, and harsher penalties against littering and fly-tipping. But for now, these bags of waste will be collected, the litter will return, and Walkden in Bloom will once again lean down to pick up the pieces of what the city has left behind.

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