Earlier this year, the Leicester Outdoor Pursuit Centre, situated downstream from the city centre on the River Soar, installed its first Seabin. For eight years the centre has carried out monthly litter picks, on foot and in canoes, in an attempt to reduce the litter along the river, but manager, Stuart Fraser, wanted to do more.
“I stumbled across a YouTube clip of the SeaBin and thought it could be the answer to chipping away at the litter issue every day, in addition to our monthly effort,” he says. “As an independent charity we needed funding, so I set about trying to make that happen.”
Support and funding to buy and install the SeaBin was provided by the Coop, as part of its work with local communities, and the Canal and Rivers Trust. “We’d love to have another one,” continues Stuart. “It could double up as an educational activity as part of an environmental or science project. We’d just need to generate enough income to sustain another one.