A NEW litter-picking station will open in Simmons Park this month thanks to campaigning by Plastic Free Okehampton which hopes that it will encourage more environmentally-friendly behaviour.

The new litter-picking station will officially open on June 10 at 11am and will be situated outside the Pavilion. The Okehampton Community and Recreation Association (OCRA) has agreed to become the ‘guardian’ of the new park facility.

The station will stocked with litter pickers and reusable bags and will be open for anyone to use.

The news follows on from a town council discussion in December last year when an Okehampton resident suggested installing a litter station for members of the public to use to reduce the amount of litter in the town.

In a letter to the town council last year, the resident in question wrote: ‘ I have, over the last couple of years, been building a relationship with the 2 Minute Foundation [a charity focused on environmental activism] with a view to obtaining one of their litter-picking stations for Okehampton. An opportunity is likely to arise whereby they could ‘gift’ us a station to help manage litter in town.’

The 2 Minute Stations, funded by the 2 Minute Foundation, were established in order to encourage members of the public to help clean up their community. The charity has said that the introduction of such litter-picking stations has resulted in a 60 per cent decrease in litter. There are now over 1,000 2 Minute Stations across the country.