Michael Gove joins the war on litter: Environment Secretary joins the Great British Spring Clean as he helps pick up rubbish in the Surrey countryside

• Environment Secretary Michael Gove joins litter-pickers by the A331 in Surrey 
• Mr Gove helped to collect 25 bin bags full of rubbish along a nature trail
• He said the litter pick showed how important a bottle deposit scheme would be
• There are more than half a million volunteers for the Great British Spring Clean 

Michael Gove joined in the Great British Spring Clean yesterday – as the number of volunteers rose to 533,469.

The Environment Secretary helped a band of litter pickers in the Surrey countryside, collecting 25 bin bags full of rubbish along a nature trail.

They found discarded waste had lodged itself in all sorts of places, some easy to get at, some a real challenge.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove helped a band of litter pickers in the Surrey countryside, collecting 25 bin bags full of rubbish along a nature trail. He joined the clean-up on the Blackwater Valley Path near Camberley

There were energy drink and lager cans in the undergrowth, polythene bags caught in brambles, cigarette packets, an old tyre – even old flower pots.

Mr Gove praised ‘wonderful local activist’ Philippa Anderson for organising the clean-up on the Blackwater Valley Path, which runs alongside a busy A road near Camberley. 

He said: ‘It’s fantastic Keep Britain Tidy and Philippa have brought so many people together to ensure this stretch by the A331, where you see all kinds of things strewn around, gets cleaned up.

‘It’s a constant battle but half a million volunteers are committed to doing their part to help us deal with the scourge of single-use plastic and other litter that harms our environment and ruins our green spaces.’ 

Mr Gove said the litter pick showed how important a deposit scheme for bottles and cans would be.

The Government is committed to introducing such a scheme by 2023.

He added: ‘A deposit scheme would mean that instead of being thrown away, bottles and cans are placed back in the system.’

Mrs Anderson, who lives in nearby Chobham and is the deputy chairman of Keep Britain Tidy, which is behind the Mail-backed Great British Spring Clean, said: ‘Much of this litter, including plastic packaging and cans, has clearly been flung from passing vehicles.

‘It damages the environment, is a risk to the wildlife and could find its way into the water course and out to the ocean.’

Mr Gove praised ‘wonderful local activist’ Philippa Anderson for organising the clean-up on the Blackwater Valley Path. They found discarded waste had lodged itself in all sorts of places, some easy to get at, some a real challenge

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