Since August 2013 John Watson has been active in persuading people to join him at North Walney Nature Reserve to pick litter from the beach. This has taken place every weekend with a break for the breeding season and the team have collected over 1,555 Kg of litter from just one mile of beach in the year!
John, a Barrow man, is the Marine Health & Safety lead and North Sea Environmental advisor at Centrica and respresents Centrica on the Furness Waste Consortium. During the weekends he is down on the beach with his litter pickers, not just picking the litter but analysing the waste to develop educational programmes to reduce the amount of rubbish that is either dropped, flushed away or thrown overboard.
Even though John’s work has now meant a move to Aberdeen, he still gets back when he can, which is most weekends, to continue his local work in the Furness area. North Walney Nature Reserve warden, Steve Benn, said “John is the driving force for getting others to help out to collect the litter”.
Everyone in the area benefits from John’s work and the benefits to wildlife are huge, the litter can be harmful to wildlife as well as being unsightly to tourists and members of the public.
Keep up the good work John and well done to you and your team on the Love Barrow Award nomination and….
BREAKING NEWS – congratulations on making it to the final three in this category, see you on the red carpet at the Forum in March!