Residents are loving the nature inspired paintings brightening up the subways in the Chaddlewood area, created by local artist Ellie Johnson, who is better known as Mrs Murals.
Themes so far have included flowers, bees and butterflies. In the latest subway Mrs Murals has painted a magnificent kingfisher, to be followed by other colourful birds and nature scenes. Woven amongst the wildlife is plastic and other pieces of debris and litter.
The thought-provoking mural hopes to raise awareness of the impact that littering has on wildlife and our natural environment.
The murals are in collaboration with Clean Our Patch, the award-winning community litter picking organisation uniting and empowering communities to make a difference together.
A spokesperson for CleanOurPatch said:
“Our aim is to keep urban and rural areas as litter-free as possible, it means more to us than just picking up litter.
“It means creating clean parks, streets, green spaces, waterways and waterfronts. It means working with our local communities to develop sustainable practices with an aim towards eliminating unnecessary waste, improving waste management practices and supporting councils to encourage better recycling practices.
“We want to inspire urban and rural communities to eliminate litter and reduce waste for now and future generations. We wish to bring communities together by creating opportunities to partake in group activities, this will in turn foster friendships and develop pride, bringing back a collective spirit that has long been lost.
“We want communities to be proud and have respect for their locality and we firmly believe that this has to start from the bottom up. We aim to educate both the public, school goers, people with disability and from different cultures on the issues around litter, hopefully inspiring them to make positive change.”
Children from Glen Park and Chaddlewood Primary Schools have been involved in the artwork project, helping with design ideas for the next and final subway and learning how important it is to keep the environment clean.
Clean Our Patch have listed a few things everyone can do to reduce litter and waste:
- When shopping select fruit and veg that is free of wrapping or packaging. Many shops now offer paper bags instead.
- Buy in bulk and refill your original container as much as possible.
- Use the Refill Devon options available in town.
- Avoid plastic bags and invest in a cotton tote bag to take shopping. This will help to reduce the five billion plastic carrier bags used worldwide each year.
- Refuse avoidable plastic such as stirrers and plastic straws.
- Choose cotton buds with a paper centre.
- Choose make up and baby wipes that are biodegradable …and never flush them down the loo
- Choose reusable cutlery and plates, or choose ones that can be recycled easily.
- Save documents online, phase out the use of plastic wallets and files.
- Reuse and recycle as much as possible – in Plymouth even black plastic trays can be rinsed and recycled.
- If something can’t be recycled easily check if there are any Terracycle collections nearby. They accept all sorts of commonly uncollected packaging such as crisp bags and biscuit wrappers.
- Take part in local beach cleans or litter picks. Whenever out walking or on the beach, complete a two minute beach clean or challenge yourself to find five items of waste plastic that can be disposed of properly in the nearby bins.
Mrs Murals aims to finish painting all subways in the area by early August.
