 and the country's longest and deepest bodies of water ( Windermere and Wastwater, respectively) – Ormrodhas become a have-a-go local litter picker. 'Lakeside we get disposable barbecues, tents, used vapes and weird stuff like abandoned footballs,' Ormrod explains of this unfortunate tide. 'On the water it's usually plastic bags and bottles.' When Ormrod is out on the handsome cobalt expanses of Lake Windermere, she routinely paddles up to floating masses of rubbish to nudge them to shore and the nearest bin. 'It makes me sad to think what else has sunk to the bottom to harm all the wildlife there,' she adds. For the romantic poet Wordsworth, the Lake District was beautified by a 'host of golden daffodils… fluttering and dancing' in the lakeside breeze. Today it's fluttering rubbish that dances across these once-pristine landscapes, as local groups including Friends of the Lake District and the delightfully named Wombles of Windermere respond to tourist-borne deluges of plastic, beer bottles and soiled nappies by setting up litter collection groups, and voluntourism offerings that combine walking with litter picking, such as the Real3Peaks Challenge . Around 40 million tourists a year visit the Lakes, with the national park being one of the winners, or losers (depending how you see it), of Covid's onus on domestic travel and the great outdoors, seeing 16 million domestic tourists in 2021 to hubs such as Keswick, Bowness and Ambleside, in an influx that has been supercharged by the region's rising Instagram and TikTok fame. On the plus side, tourism supports around 30,000 jobs in the Lake District (equivalent to 26 per cent of Cumbria's working age population), and generates){kind=link}
After another bumper summer for the Lake District, locals have had enough of influencers, plastic pollution and public urinating
“You see all sorts bobbing about on the Lakes,” says Eleanor Ormrod, a 24-year-old nail technician and keen paddleboarder from Kendal. Like many locals in the Lake District National Park – which extends across 2,000 sq km of Cumbria and is home to England’s highest mountain (977m Scafell Pike) and the country’s longest and deepest bodies of water (Windermere and Wastwater, respectively) – Ormrodhas become a have-a-go local litter picker.
“Lakeside we get disposable barbecues, tents, used vapes and weird stuff like abandoned footballs,” Ormrod explains of this unfortunate tide. “On the water it’s usually plastic bags and bottles.”
When Ormrod is out on the handsome cobalt expanses of Lake Windermere, she routinely paddles up to floating masses of rubbish to nudge them to shore and the nearest bin. “It makes me sad to think what else has sunk to the bottom to harm all the wildlife there,” she adds.
For the romantic poet Wordsworth, the Lake District was beautified by a “host of golden daffodils… fluttering and dancing” in the lakeside breeze. Today it’s fluttering rubbish that dances across these once-pristine landscapes, as local groups including Friends of the Lake District and the delightfully named Wombles of Windermere respond to tourist-borne deluges of plastic, beer bottles and soiled nappies by setting up litter collection groups, and voluntourism offerings that combine walking with litter picking, such as the Real3Peaks Challenge.