GD Environmental, the Newport and Llanelli-based waste management company, continued its decade-long commitment to community and environmental sustainability by celebrating the recent Earth Day with a 'lunch break litter pick'.

Employees from all GD Environmental managed sites, including Newport, Llanelli and Pontypool, as well as neighbouring company MDW, took to the streets and roads around their sites and picking up all the litter.

Operations manager Oliver Hazell said: “We’re very fortunate that our Newport head office is surrounded by wildlife, which is why it’s increasingly sad to come into work and see it covered in discarded litter which has the potential to clog drains and kill local wildlife.

"As a waste management company, we find it especially ironic that the litter is discarded a few feet away from a site which could properly treat and recycle it.”

The rubbish collected from the litter pick was transferred to GD’s waste sorting facilities, where it will, after a segregation process, be recycled.

GD Environmental has one of the highest recycling rates in Wales, with more than 96 per cent of all waste it collects, from wood to plastic, being recycled and is aiming for a 100 per cent landfill diversion rate.

Kimberley Pennell, marketing manager, said: “Although our actions, in the grand scheme of things, will have a small effect on the global fight for a cleaner and safer earth, we hope that our litter pick will have a beneficial effect on the local ecosystem and hopefully encourage nearby companies to take on an equal amount of community responsibility.”