Wisbech pensioner with a 'can' do attitude!

A Fenland pensioner is hoping to make a crushing impact on a town's litter problem and help a local good cause in the process.

Mick Howard, 74, of Osborne Road, Wisbech, has been putting his daily lockdown walks to good use by collecting discarded drink cans as he goes out and about around the town.

Not only is he helping to clean the town's streets, but he is also aiming to help the East Anglian Air Ambulance by providing some much needed funding.

Mick, a retired lorry driver who is married to Rita, has built his own metal press using recycled materials, with the aim of crushing the drinks cans and turning them into flattened bales that he can then take to the local junk yard where they can be weighed in and then cashed in for money.

He said: "I came up with the idea of picking up the drinks cans because I got fed up seeing them lying all over the place and I thought I could help make Wisbech a cleaner place.

"I then came up with the idea of crushing them flat so I could collect more and then take them to the junk yard where they can be weighed and I could collect the cash. That's when I thought I'd do it for a good cause, and the East Anglian Air Ambulance is certainly that.

"Like all air ambulances, they do a fantastic job helping people when they need it most. I have been a lorry driver for 46 years and have driven thousands of miles across this country and the continent and so I know how valuable the air ambulance can be if there has been a major crash.

"I have been taking it careful during lockdown, but I have been out for walks, which is when I collect the cans - there's a chap who lives over the road from me who likes a can or two of beer in the evening and he has been donating them to me for the press, which I made out of stuff I had lying around.

"At the moment it is half-full and I'm now hoping that other people will help by picking up empties and popping them in the bin I've put outside my house at number 79 Osborne Road, so I can crush them. The more we get, the more we can raise for this wonderful charity. It doesn't matter how many I get, because once the press is full I can crush the cans, bale them up and start again.

"Who knows? If everyone joins in then Wisbech could be one of the cleanest towns in the country. Let's face it, we all see empty drinks cans lying around all over the place, so this is a chance to make good use out of them."