Volunteering with a Park Friends group

There are also opportunities to volunteer through your local Park Friends or conservation group. These groups are usually well established and work closely with our Parks Rangers.

Find a Park Friends group near you.

Community litter picking

Lots of people want to support their local park by keeping it clean and litter free. Thank you for your interest in cleaning up our community. We have lots of different ways that you can get involved. As lockdown restrictions have eased slightly, and individuals, household groups, and groups of up to six people can spend an unlimited amount of time in our parks and outdoor spaces, we can now resume our support to clean-up activities.

Are you a ‘Friends of Park group’

In order to do this safely we have been working with Birmingham Open Spaces Forum to agree a “Covid Secure” Operating Procedures and Risk Assessment document. Both documents set out guidance on how volunteer groups can start to re-engage with the local green space and with each other. The guidance mirrors that being produced nationally by Keep Britain Tidy and is available on the Birmingham Open Spaces Forum website.

Are you an external organisation looking to hold a litter pick on parks land?

If you want to organise a community clean-up in one of our parks or open spaces please register your interest by filling in our use of parks form.

Please take a look at our group litter picking check list for some of the things you will need to provide before we can support your application.

More advice can be found on organizing a community litter pick in our downloadable litter pick leaflet.

There are also lots of helpful resources if you want to find out more about rubbish and recycling and how to become a litter champion in our cleaner, greener streets downloads section.

Litter picking

Please remember:

• Good hygiene is key to keeping safe. Please use hand sanitizer when out litter picking and wash your hands when you get home.
• Do not pick up discarded face masks and gloves with your hands, use a litter picker.
• Use strong rubbish bags, if you have collected masks or gloves please consider double bagging what you have collected to keep yourself and others safe.
• Clean any objects used for litter picking with anti-bacterial wipes or cleaning spray.

We ask volunteers to note that any activities undertaken are not being carried out on behalf of the council, and participation is at their own risk.