WHILE hundreds of revellers come together every year to mark Chard’s annual carnival procession, it falls to a small team of volunteers to silently return the town to normal after the parade.

The Chard Carnival Committee works tirelessly with the Chard Town amenities team to ensure that every scrap of litter is picked up after the event, but this year saw a green team take the clean up task further than ever before.

The Plastic Free Chard group, which has already held a number of litter picks through the town, joined the tidying challenge to leave the town even better than it had been before carnival.

Serena Wootton, who is also a Green town councillor, said: “The litter pick was organised by myself and the Plastic Free Chard team, as before we organized four teams to each leave from one of the four Chard Town Signs and litter pick while heading toward the library.

“This was our third litter pick and we chose to do it after the carnival to help tidy the town.

“The Town Amenities team started out at 6am, focusing on the town centre and along the carnival route, so we focused outside of the town centre.”

The volunteers set off around St Mary’s Church, Jocelyn Park, the car parks of Sainsbury’s, Tesco, B&Q and Factory Schop, and along Glynswood and Combe Street.

Cllr Wootton added: “I was so impressed by how many people turned up on such a wet and windy Sunday morning.

“A couple of teachers and students from Redstart School came along and we took the litter over to Redstart on Tuesday afternoon to show the pupils how we sort rubbish and make sure most of it is recycled rather than heading for the landfill.”

As well as glass bottles and plastic cups, the Plastic Free Chard team picked up several metal car parts, a wooden rabbit hutch, and a lady’s handbag, which was then handed in to police.

In total they filled 12 large sacks with rubbish.

Cllr Jason Baker is the chairman of the carnival committee.

He said: “Chard Carnival Committee have worked hard this year to try and reduce the amount of waste that is left in the town by having extra bins and big bags available in the town centre.

“We also work closely with our local amenities team who come in to work extra early on the Sunday morning to ensure the town is clean and tidy.

“This team really do deserve our thanks as they do an amazing job in making sure the town is clean and looks like nothing has happened by the time most people are up and about without this team it would take us hours to litter pick the town.”