Trafford marathon litter pick leaves man with sore feet

Mr Dale said after completing the challenge, he was now "going to have a rest"

A dedicated litter-picking volunteer who filled almost 40 bags of rubbish across a 10-hour marathon session has admitted it left him with sore feet.

Mark Dale decided to collect rubbish along a 26.2 mile (42.1km) route in Trafford, Greater Manchester as part of an annual Keep Britain Tidy campaign.

The council environmental improvement manager said he had worried he would not finish the litter pick at first.

However, he said he soon realised he was "eating up the ground".

Helped by volunteers, Mr Dale set off from Trafford Town Hall early on Friday and bagged litter through Old Trafford, Trafford Park, Sale, Altrincham, Urmston and Stretford before returning to his starting point.

"My feet are sore, but it was well worth it," he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

'One step more'

He said his team took part in the charity's Great British Spring Clean every year and usually did rubbish collections, but he had wanted "to do something different... and that's when I came up with the marathon litter pick idea".

"When I first started out, I was concerned that I might not finish - 26 miles is a long way.

"But as I got further [into it], I realised I was eating up the ground."

He said he hoped his efforts would "inspire those that blight our communities with litter to go that one step more and take their litter to a bin".

He added that he was now "going to have a rest".

Praising Mr Dale's "fantastic effort", Trafford councillor Stephen Adshead said he had done "a tremendous job" supporting the campaign.

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