It’s a supermarket trolley. It’s useful. Unless it is in a front garden, slowly filling with rubbish.

Sunday 16th September was World Cleanup Day. Across 160 countries, millions of volunteers joined together to clear rubbish from their environment. We played our own small part by organising a litter pick on our street. It was a sunny day and we nattered with neighbours as we tackled the inevitable dunes of cigarette butts in the gutters.

Though we probably should’ve stuck to the pavements- to avoid accusations of trespass- we ventured into a couple of extremely messy front gardens to sort them out. We heard no shouts of “get orf my land,” so hopefully our efforts were appreciated.

One litter picker pointed out a supermarket trolley in her neighbour’s garden. She was tired of seeing it from her kitchen window every day. After we’d cleared the rubbish from this trolley, she said it would soon fill up again with assorted cans- its original purpose forgotten, it had become some kind of mobile litter bin!

How often do we look at something that depresses us…. complain about it to others… get really angry about it still being there months later? Today was the day for solutions. I rescued the trolley and used it to transport our litter bags to the collection point.

And the next day I pushed it back to the shop where it belonged. Problem solved. Sometimes it really is that easy.

The twitter motto for #WorldCleanupDay was #JustDoIt. It’s a philosophy I’d recommend.