A TEAM of volunteer litter pickers from a York-based veterinary group have collected 26 bags of rubbish while taking part in a neighbourhood clean up.

Sweet wrappers, bottles, cans, cigarette butts and fast food containers were among the dozens of items of litter cleaned up by colleagues from VetPartners during the UK’s largest mass-action environmental campaign.

Nearly 30 team members joined forces on Tuesday (March 29) to take part in Keep Britain Tidy’s Great British Spring Clean, which is taking place between March 25 and April 10.

Three groups of volunteers from VetPartners, based at their head office at Spitfire House in Clifton Moor, York, spent three hours picking litter to help keep the surrounding area clean, green and litter-free.

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VetPartners sustainability manager, Dr Hannah James, said: “Litter can be harmful to wildlife and spoils people’s enjoyment of outdoor spaces. We wanted to do our bit to clean up the area around our head office.

“Litter picks not only clean up our public spaces, they also help to raise awareness about the extent of the litter problem and encourage people to think carefully about what they do with their waste.

“We’re a close-knit team at VetPartners and getting outside for our litter pick was a great team bonding activity - and also helped us to connect us with our local community.”

The volunteers filled two recycling bags with bottles, six with items to be recycled and 18 with general rubbish. Among the other items collected were wine bottles, drinks cans, magazines, electrical cables, broken plastic guttering, carrier bags, fast food containers, envelopes, plastic drink bottles, plastic sheeting, lolly sticks and metal bolts.

VetPartners has committed itself and its 148 UK veterinary practices, with 7,000 employees, to ambitious environmental and charitable goals that put sustainability at the heart of everything the company does - and the litter picking event was part of many green projects being undertaken by employees during 2022.

Pet healthcare, like human healthcare, comes with a significant impact on the environment, especially with regards to waste and energy and VetPartners is committed to making significant progress towards sustainability in its practices.

VetPartners was the first UK veterinary group to provide zero waste boxes for more than 300 of its sites in England, Scotland and Wales to recycle extra PPE, including gloves, aprons and masks, worn during the health crisis.

The recycling initiative, introduced in October 2020, is part of wider sustainability goals at VetPartners, which launched its first sustainability strategy in 2020, entitled Looking Forward Together.

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Following European expansion in 2019, VetPartners now has practices in Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany and Spain. The group also now includes pet cremation services, an online retailer, a small animal veterinary nursing school, an equine nursing school, laboratories and a locum agency.