#THISISMYADVENTURE - Litter Peaks
Litter Peaks is fairly new organisation, dedicated to freeing our wild places of rubbish. We find out more from the man who started it all, Daniel Toal.
Daniel, 25, was born and raised in Kendal, a small town on the edge of the English Lake District.
Unsurprisingly growing up here Dan has always had a passion for the outdoors, spending the majority of his youth playing football or riding his bike. He didn’t realise his love of hiking until sometime later though and in fact discovered this enthusiasm whilst in the Blue Mountains, Australia:
‘We took a day tour with a guide around the mountains, it was incredible and the views were beautiful. From then on walking has become a huge passion of mine, not only do I witness some incredible views, but it keeps me fit and healthy at the same time’.
As Dan continued his walking he says began to notice more & more litter being left behind by people - the strangest item of which was a soaked pair of men’s Calvin Klein’s.
‘It eventually got to me so I decided to take action and help do something about it’.
He set up a page for the organisation on Instagram and got out into the fells a couple of days later - hiking up to Priest Hole Cave on Dove Crag ‘just to clean it’. Dan did the clean with his friend Harrison and between them they removed a whopping four full bin-bags of rubbish as well as some old sleeping matts, too.
Dan is very much leading by example, continuing to go out a litter pick himself, whilst also planning larger scale clean-ups that members of the public will be able to join.
‘There are group clean ups being planned as we speak’, says Dan, determined to continue his worthwhile efforts.
No doubt 99.9% of our customers and followers are affected by this issue - we all use our wild spaces for various recreational purposes and none of us like to see litter lying around. If you’d like to help Litter Peaks directly you can keep an eye on their Instagram here for future clean-up announcements. These are not to be seen as a chore though, as Dan says:
We don’t want people thinking they’re coming along just to clean, we want them to see it as more of a group walk with like-minded people, but picking up litter along the way. We want people to enjoy it, that’s what the outdoors is all about right?
You can also get involved by just taking a bin-bag out each time you go for a walk and pick up litter as you go, in the words of the man himself ‘a bin-bag weighs nothing so its a simple thing to put in your bag’. Dan also encourages people to share their finds with the group on Instagram by using #LitterPeaks or by sending images to them as a direct message:
‘If you’re in the Lake District area and want to help LitterPeaks make a difference, contact myself Daniel Toal or LitterPeaks on Instagram or Twitter’.
Tomorrow (30/09/2018) is National Get Outside Day and we’d like to challenge everyone reading this to take home at least one piece of rubbish with them (not including your own of course - that goes without saying). Make sure to use #litterpeaks on any litter picking post - we’ll be keeping an eye out for them at Ascendancy Apparel HQ tomorrow and we’ll share any that we see on our story. Let’s all follow Dan’s example and make a difference to our wild places.
