Nadia Sparkes, aka Trash Girl, concerned for her environment stands to make a change. She is a wonderful 12 years old who started high school in September. Concerned by the amount of rubbish on her 2 mile route to and from school she began collecting it and bringing it home in her bike basket.
She decided to see how much she could collect by the end of her first term just on her school route and collected in excess of 1 80ltr green bins worth. Her green habits caught the attention of some bullies who took it upon themselves to try to mock her by calling her Trash girl. Eventually she came home distraught because of the way they were treating her.
After a long chat about what had been happening (the school had been supportive, but this was happening outside of school) Nadia’s mum said that really she had 2 choices, she could either stop collecting rubbish, stop drawing their attention and hopefully they would leave her alone. Or she could own “trash girl”, how dare they make it a negative name.
Nadia immediately replied, “I’m not going to stop doing the right thing because of them and if they are going to call me trash girl they can say it with respect. I’m doing something to protect the world they also live in”
Nadia came home from school the next day with more litter in her bike basket and in total in her first term at school has now collected in excess of 2 80ltr green bins worth of what is mostly recycling / plastic.
She was even told by other students that she has to pick up their litter, and that its her job, but actually as Nadia says “it’s everyone’s job. We are all responsible for keeping this world safe, instead of believing that it’s always someone else’s job.”
Nadia’s family are extremely proud of Nadia, not only for standing up to bullies, but also for standing up for what she believes is right. Nadia will be continuing to collect the bottles and cans that line her route to and from school. It’s just a shame that so much is being dropped in the first place and that she has ever been mocked for doing something so good.
Julia Bradbury and The Outdoor Guide contacted Nadia and her supportive mother, Paula and invited them along to Keep Britain Tidy’s London Eye Challenge! It is here Team Trash Girl takes on the London Eye challenge to launch Keep Britain Tidy’s Great British Spring Clean! This involved collecting as much litter as possible in the shortest amount of time in a pod!
The dream team was made up of supporters of The Outdoor Guide’s (TOG) litter bag including Julia Bradbury, Trail Magazine, Premier Paper Group, Camping and Caravanning Club, RSPCA and the wonderful Nadia Sparkes. We were up against teams from Wilko and McDonalds to name a few, so did we win??
TOG Says …
