A STOURBRIDGE clean up group which has been going strong for almost ten years has celebrated another successful year.

Tidy Stourbridge has been going since 2010 when a few friends, fed-up of the litter and rubbish gathering on the streets, decided to get together to form a small litter-picking group.

From humble beginnings - the group has expanded from holding litter picks once a month into a 20-strong team of dedicated volunteers staging clean-ups every fortnight.

Members say they have just completed another successful 12 months and the amount of rubbish collected in 2019 was double that picked up off the streets and open spaces around Stourbridge in 2018.

Over the last 12 months volunteers have filled 500 large retail compactor sacks, picked up 100 black bags full of rubbish, 28 tyres, 10 wheels, 15 traffic cones, four shopping trolleys, numerous mattresses, suitcases and office chairs, carpets, fridges, freezers and lots of various types of plastics.

Stourbridge News: Rubbish collected during a recent litter pick in LyeRubbish collected during a recent litter pick in Lye

The Tidy Stourbridge volunteers litter pick on Sunday mornings in the autumn and winter and on a Wednesday or Thursday evening in the spring and summer - and they work closely with Dudley Council's street cleansing department which usually picks up the rubbish on the same day the Tidy volunteers have collected it.

The group also sometimes teams-up with other volunteer groups such as Transition Stourbridge, Saltwells Green and Clean and other organisations like City Electrical Factors, the Labour Party and borough schools.

A number of businesses have kindly assisted the group with sponsorship and donations including Lush, Waitrose and the Yorkshire Building Society, but further donations would be gratefully received to help with insurance, equipment costs and to help cover the costs of the heavy duty sacks required to collect the rubbish.

Anyone wishing to make a donation or to join the Tidy Stourbridge volunteers on one of their forthcoming litter picks can find out more online at tidystourbridge.wordpress.com.

David Colley, joint founder of Tidy Stourbridge, said: “It’s very hard to believe it’s nearly 10 years since we formed Tidy Stourbridge, but sadly our work is never done and the amount of litter ever increases, but Tidy Stourbridge needs the help of the community and not just a few.

"If more people could just spare a couple of hours every now and then we can make the world a tidier place.

"The group will continue with it’s Pick'n'Pint events during 2020 as long as we have the funds and the volunteers to do so."