A HUGE army of volunteers donned fluorescent jackets and grabbed litter-pickers to collect 160 bags of rubbish from notoriously untidy areas of Braintree and Maldon.
The litter party in Braintree was made up of 60 volunteers, including staff from the Braintree McDonald's restaurant, Braintree District Council, Braintree environmental team and staff from local KFC and Domino's restaurants. They were there to crackdown on litter hotspots in and around Cressing Sports and Social Club.
The crew collected 100 bags of rubbish as they looked to encourage the community to take responsibility for keeping their neighbourhood litter free.
The group in Maldon was made up of 30 volunteers, including staff from the Fullbridge Road McDonald's, Maldon District Council, Maldon environmental team and staff from the Domino's pizza takeaway collecting 60 bags of junk.
Cherry Lewis-Taylor, McDonald's franchisee at the Maldon and Braintree restaurants, said: "It was inspiring to see members of the community join forces to take action on litter.
"Unfortunately there are still a significant proportion of people who think it is acceptable to drop litter – it's everyone's responsibility and through these events we wanted to generate awareness of the issue, educate those people on how to dispose of rubbish properly and encourage them to be more responsible.
"I'd like to thank all of the volunteers for their hard work and setting a good example of what can be achieved if people pull together.
"It's vital that we all do our bit to tackle the issue – everyone from local businesses like mine, to the residents of Maldon should make a commitment to helping protect the local environment."
This event was just one of a number of McDonald's clean-up events taking place both in Essex and across the country in 2014 as part of Keep Britain Tidy's anti-littering campaign, Love Where You Live.
The campaign encourages the public to take action against litter.
Aside from larger litter events, staff at the Maldon and Braintree restaurant patrol the streets at least three times a day to collect all litter that has been discarded, regardless of its origin.
On May 13, an army of volunteers from McDonald's in South Woodham Ferrers will lead staff from the town's Subway, Asda, Domino's and Costa shops on a litter pick, along with town mayor Christine Weir-Ewing and her deputy Sam Coley.
