Calais Woods Wombles Fact Sheet
Article written by: Ali Rae - Calais Woods Wombles
The Group was founded by local volunteers in 2020 to litter-pick in the woods as a sub-group of the Calais Muir Wildlife Conservation Group (now known as Calais Woods Community Group).
The Council is unable to cleanse the woods due to limiting factors:
o Budget: There are 000s of hectares of woodland in Fife. Where would the money come from?
o Disposal: Moving recovered trash from the sites – what happens after that? Fife Council is legally committed to recycling a high % of waste matter. Additional waste from the county’s woodlands would negate the % achieved in recycling as it would go straight to landfill.
o Logistics: In the interest of Health and Safety, Council operatives may not carry objects or loads of over a certain weight (I think it is 20Kg) more than 25 meters to a waiting Council vehicle. Our woodlands stretch for 00s of square kilometres. There is often no road or path that could accommodate Council vehicles.
o Vehicles/Equipment: Operatives would have to be trained, tested and insured to use special all-terrain vehicles and any special equipment, for which there is currently no budget provision.
Our volunteers originally stapled 5 bin bags to post or trees at strategic points. The bags were emptied twice per week, however they were often vandalised, set on fire, or they blew away in the wind.
Fife Council agreed to locate 2 proper waste bins in the woods at our request provided we service them ourselves. One was destroyed by fire and was subsequently replaced by a metallic one.
Our volunteers empty the waste bins 2-3 times per week and more often during school holidays.
From COVID lockdown onwards we have found illicit drinking dens, some of which are still patronised today. We organise mass litter picks (blitz sessions) when required and we co-ordinate activities for volunteer groups from schools, local companies and businesses.
Where we find evidence of illegal activities, they are reported to the Police, Fire Service and the Council as appropriate.
We also report fires to the Fire & Rescue Service. The soil in much of the wood is peat-based. Peat comprises of air pockets and combustible plants. Once a heat source is introduced, the fires can smoulder underground for hours, even days, thus undermining the roots of trees and shrubs. We have lost circa a dozen mature trees to this phenomenon. We have also lost 4 trees in as many weeks in August 2026 due to vandalism. An axe head was found embedded in one “victim” tree.
Stats:
o From March 2024 to March 2025, 24 fires were started deliberately in the locality. 18 of them in the woods, the remainder in the park (Fife Fire & Rescue Service).
o The Wombles Group lifts about 4 kilos of trash per week, since 2020. No other trash is lifted or removed from the site. This equates to roughly 200 Kilos per annum.
o In addition, previous “blitz” sessions, we have lifted 20–30 bags of trash per session and many other objects, e.g. shopping trolleys, wheelie bins, a discarded water boiler, Traffic cones, items stolen from the Learning Campus, rolls of fence wire, insulation blocks, soiled underwear and nappies, drug-consumption accoutrements …the list goes on.
o In 6 years of operation, we have lifted the equivalent weight of:
a Mk1 Ford Transit van
or a giraffe
or 3 dolphins
or 7 adult St Bernard dogs.
o The volume however is enormous. It would roughly equate to 2 large dumper trucks per annum. Can you imagine the mess if we had left it as it was? We’d be wading through trash and disgusting mess up to our ankles.
o The Council previously provided bin bags, however we recently requested a new supply and the request was passed onto a different Council department. That was a month ago, so it looks like we are now having to source them ourselves. 200 bin bags @80L cost us £20. We will use that in about 10 weeks.
o We have 6 regular volunteers who patrol the woods weekly to pick litter and empty the 2 bins. We call on local groups to help us during “blitz” sessions about twice per annum.
Photo credit: Calais Woods Wombles Facebook page