Sadly, litter is a common sight in lots of urban areas. It’s no different in Camden Town, where we see litter scattered along roads, in the Regents Canal and in our own Castlehaven Community Park.

In fact, litter is such a big problem that it costs taxpayers well over £1 billion each year to keep England’s streets clean. We’re trying to tackle this, and make our local area tidier with your help.

As part of Great Big Green Week 2025, where hundreds of thousands of people across the UK celebrate all things environmental, we officially became a Cleanup Hub. This means we now have a supply of litter picking equipment such as litter pickers, gloves and high vis that anyone can borrow to help us keep Castlehaven and Camden Town tidy.

When you pick up all the equipment, we’ll give you a short safety briefing and then you’re good to go! To borrow the equipment for up to ten people, all you have to do is email environmentalteam@castlehaven.org.uk. Then, we can arrange a time for you to collect and return the kit on a weekday between 9:30 am – 5:30 pm!

Since becoming a Cleanup Hub, we’ve collected 24 bags of rubbish from our community park, the nearby canal and local streets. This is on top of the daily litter picking our staff and volunteers do to keep our park looking its best.

One group who borrowed our litter picking kit for an afternoon was from BEETc, who organises events across the globe. They brought nine enthusiastic volunteers and split into two teams to see who could collect the most litter in a couple of hours. Check out the video on the left to see them in action!

Every litter picking session shows just how much of a difference we can make together. Even an hour with the kit helps transform Camden Town into a cleaner, greener place.

Ready to take part? Email environmentalteam@castlehaven.org.uk to find out how you can borrow the equipment, and get litter picking.Â