13 awesome runners ran 4km to help clean up on the River Thames!

It was the second installment of the GoodGym & For Goodness Shakes collaborations and this time it was all about clearing up our London river!

It has been in the news so much recently about single use plastic and how so much of it ends up in the oceans harming the wildlife. Since plastic never decomposes, it just gets broken down into gradually smaller and smaller pieces called micro-plastic and sadly that is the kind of stuff that gets eaten by seabirds and marine animals resulting in millions of deaths each year. Apparently there are more pieces of microplastic in our oceans than there are stars in our galaxy.... CRAZY!!!!!!

We met at the office, distributed some gloves, litter pickers and bin bags and then made our way towards Rotherhithe where I knew of some good unlocked entrances down to the Thames shoreline. Before we were even half way there, loads of stuff had already been collected. Plastic bottles, coffee cups, straws, cigarette butts, carrier bags, crisp packets, cans of drink.... the list goes on!

We arrived at the steps to take us down to the river where there is usually a lot of rubbish that gets washed up at low tide. The team headed down, split up and went different directions along the cobbly river bed. After 20 minutes, the tide was starting to come in and it was time to move on. We went to another location a little further down for the last 10 minutes to collect more stuff. By this point, the bin bags were nearly all the way full and getting heavy, especially with the amount of glass there was lying around!

After 30 minutes it was time to head back so we went a slightly different way to the office, to try and maximise our pickings! All the full bin bags were disposed of in nearby bins and the last two fresh ones distributed! It was all hands on deck on the way back trying to fill them with as much stuff as possible! And it didn't even seem like a struggle! There was so much waste hidden in bushes, in the carparks, on the streets next to the curbs.. just loads when you go looking for it!

The last two bags were filled and we called it a day! A nice gentle jog back to the office to finish off the run!

Great work everyone!! You collected so much waste which is amazing! Lots of people were really appreciative of all the work you were doing, especially the residents near the carpark we did at the end so really well done! See you in a few weeks time for the Christmas special!