Leeds: River Aire is cleaned up thanks to volunteers

Car tyres, fridge parts and a traffic cone were among the items removed from the River Aire by clean-up volunteers.

Around 40 members of the White Rose Canoe Club took part in cleaning up a section of the river near Leeds city center on Saturday as part of a national campaign by Paddle UK.

They filled dozens of garbage bags.

Volunteer Dawn, who helped out with her son and grandson, said it was “a good way to relax, get some fresh air and exercise”.

“You’re doing your part for the environment,” she added.

Other items pulled from the river included Styrofoam blocks, footballs and takeaway boxes.

White Rose Canoe Club training officer Dean Jordan said the club’s quarterly clean-ups “turn up all sorts of weird and wonderful treats”.

“It’s not pretty to see,” he added.

“It’s nice to try and help eliminate it.”

Paddle UK, the national governing body for paddle sports in the UK, runs The Big Paddle Clean-up campaign every year.

According to a spokesperson for the organisation, more than 2,500 volunteers helped collect around 1,800 “huge bags” of waste last year.

These included 6,767 plastic bottles, 2,739 glass bottles, 4,403 cans and 7,682 food packaging.

Paddle UK’s head of access and environment, Chantelle Grundy, said the campaign was “an opportunity for the paddle community to come together and show their love for the blue spaces we enjoy paddling in”.

Their collective effort “everything comes together,” she said.

“When you look at that national picture, thousands of bags of trash and plastic pollution will be removed from our waterways across the country.”