A community champion’s clean-up effort has highlighted the long-term impact litter can have on the environment.

Phillip Craig set himself the challenge of collecting litter every day during Lent – and the rubbish he has so far gathered includes a crisp packet and drinks can dating back 30 years.

“It was a real eye opener and shows how long litter can stay around for,” said Phillip, who lives in a Broadacres Housing Association home in Knotto Bottom Way, Northallerton.

“Hopefully, we are all now becoming more environmentally conscious. and we can consign long term litter to the rubbish bin.”

A warehouse worker with BT, Phillip’s community work is well known in Northallerton. He has been litter picking for many years, is an ambassador with keep Britain Tidy and also helps out at Northallerton Park Run and the annual town carnival.

He’s run several Great North Run’s to raise money for Herriot Hospice so decided to set himself a new challenge.

“I thought I needed to come up with something new. I saw others were doing litter challenges for Lent and for Ramadan and thought that was a way giving something back to the community whilst raising money for the Hospice,” said Phillip.

The challenge was to fill a bag of litter for each of the 46 days of Lent – but Phillip had collected over 100 from all over Northallerton with two weeks still to go.

That includes a Seabrooks Prawn Cocktail crisp packet with a best before date of April 1994 and a can of Fanta which Phillip has also dated back to the same time from the logo design.

“I’m not the sort of person who can just stop at one bag, there’s always rubbish somewhere,” said Phillip.

“I work during the day so at the start of the challenge when the days were shorter, I got a head torch to go out litter picking in the dark, I find it relaxing.”

Broadacres’ Customer Experience Director Andy Powell said: “Phillip does an amazing, selfless job, in our local community and we are proud to have him as a customer of Broadacres.

Phillip charts his litter picking routes on Facebook and has a loyal band of followers.