Cando project rids Cheltenham's streets of 10,000 cans

When it comes to keeping Cheltenham tidy and helping to save the planet, a group of green-minded enthusiasts say there is a lot you Cando.

One of the town’s environmental groups, Vision 21, has collected and recycled a staggering 100kg worth of aluminium cans in the past 12 months. On the basis that each weighs 10g, that is the equivalent of 10,000 cans.

They have all been picked up by the group’s volunteers in Cheltenham, either on foot or using a three-wheel bike with a large box on the front to keep the cans in.

The volunteers are part of Vision 21’s Reclaim project, which focuses on recycling furniture and repairing bicycles.

Spokesman Dave Entwhistle said he was keen for people to know about the work of the volunteers and said he was prompted to contact the Echo after reading our story about resident Sharman Davies’ campaign to reduce the amount of litter in the town.

He said: “Our Cando project helps to protect the environment and it also provides worthy voluntary opportunities to volunteers.

“We have been collecting discarded drinks cans via our street patrol for the last 12 months. Our Reclaim volunteers go on foot or use our cargo bike scavenging for discarded drinks cans in parks or on Cheltenham’s streets and parks, helping to keep them tidy and litter free. The cans are later sorted into steel or aluminium ready for recycling.”

He said it raised a small amount of money for Vision 21, reduced the need for the mining of bauxite - the ore from which aluminium is derived - and helped keep the streets tidy.

Some of the volunteers are on Gloucestershire College’s life skills course.

One of them, Justin Perkins, from Springbank, said: “I must have picked up a couple of hundred cans. My message to people is not to drop them as it will help the environment if they don’t.”

The volunteers have done eight litter-picks on the Honeybourne Line and are planning to do two more shortly.