Birthday party tinsel, glass bottles, plastic, paper and tins made up most of the street litter collected by Te Matapuna Brownies.
Ten Brownies, aged seven to nine, have been collecting rubbish around Mania O Roto Scout Park as part of community action for their Within My World Badge.
Leader Marion Brown said senior Brownies have to do community action for their gold Kouru.
‘‘Kouru is one of the 10 clauses they need to complete.
‘‘It’s the highest Brownie award before they move to Guides,’’ she said.
The session was also in readiness for Keep New Zealand Beautiful clean up week, she said. It runs from September 20 to 27.
They were joined by Litter-Free Ashburton’s Bev Skates who gave them a run down on the typical rubbish found by members of the group.
Bev provided the Brownies with district council supplied gloves and blue rubbish bags.
Litter-Free Ashburton is having its community clean up day in downtown Ashburton on Saturday, September 21 from 10am to 1pm.
Members are keen to have community members join them on the day. Gloves and bags are provided.
They will meet at the event caravan in the West St car park.
Brown said Te Matapuna Brownies spent an hour and a half collecting rubbish along the walkways, and by the end of their session they had four full rubbish bags.
The rubbish was then sorted into recyclables, and refuse.
‘‘The kids had a ball. They had an hour-and-a-half to play with rubbish,’’ she said.
It was the second time this year the children had collected rubbish from along public walkways surrounding the park, and it was a similar volume of waste which had been collected, Brown said.
The Brownies will be looking at weather next. They will make windchimes and rain gauges from driftwood and recycled plastic bottles.
