A COMPASSIONATE 10-year-old girl from Stourport has set herself the challenge of clearing her five-mile route to school of litter.

St Wulston’s Catholic Primary School student Chloe Blanchfield has already filled 46 bin bags with rubbish collected from verges and footpaths around Stourport - and she still has a mile left to go.

Proud mum Karen Blanchfield, who volunteers with local litter-picking group The Pickup Artists, said: “Chloe has been litter-picking with me for a while so she’s not litter blind anymore. She sees it everywhere.

“Every day on the way to school she’d say ‘mum look at all that litter on the floor’, and then the Great British Spring Clean came around and she told me she wanted to do her route to school.

“She’s been out every day since March 22 for a minimum of half an hour everyday, then coming home with bagfuls of litter.

“You’re meant to fill a roll of bin bags for the Great British Spring Clean - that’s 10 bags - but Chloe’s done 46 already. I’m just so proud of her.”

Chloe’s main drive for cleaning up her community is to protect local wildlife.

She said: “I’m very annoyed because this is not how we should live.

“Look at how much bacteria we get from one piece of litter. If the animals are climbing inside of that they’re going to be gone forever.”

Kidderminster Shuttle:

Members of the Stourport community, including the town mayor David Little and Pickup Artists founder Michelle Medler, will gather at St Wulston’s School on Tuesday (April 23) to cheer Chloe on as she passes the finish line at the school gates.

Christine Neal, of The Pickup Artists, said: “What this young girl has achieved is not only spectacular but a completely selfless task.

“She is a credit not only to her parents who must be very proud but also to her school.

“There are very few children who would want to take on such a commitment let alone spend an hour every single day of the month out with her bag and picker - even when she was feeling unwell.”