This year, Sustain Cotswolds took on the waste and recycling for Tetbury's famous Woolsack Race. The goal was simple: keep the town clean and tidy right through its busiest day. It's the kind of job people only notice when it goes wrong, so here's how it went.
A famous Tetbury tradition
The Woolsack Race is one of Tetbury's best-loved events. It's a famous Bank Holiday tradition that fills the streets and brings the whole town together, with runners charging up and down the steep Gumstool Hill carrying 60 lb sacks of wool. You can see the spectacle in ITV News' coverage of the race.
The Woolsack Race tradition
Six centuries of Cotswold wool
Long before the runners and the crowds, Tetbury made its name in wool. From the Middle Ages to the 16th century it was one of the great wool markets of the Cotswolds, on the old trading road between Oxford and Bristol.
The race is said to date back to the 17th century, when drovers would haul a sack of wool, or even a sheep, up Gumstool Hill between two pubs to settle a wager. The modern Woolsack Races were revived in 1972, running from The Royal Oak at the foot of the hill to The Crown at the top. The woolsacks carried today still weigh 60 lb for the men and 35 lb for the women.
Learn more about one of the West Country's quirkiest traditions →The challenge: bins filling as fast as we emptied them
Big events create waste in bursts. Between 1pm and 3pm, the busiest stretch of the day, the bins were filling almost as fast as we could empty them.
That's the point where a lot of events come unstuck. It's where overflowing bins, blowing litter and a tired-looking high street usually start.
Local, agile and adaptable
This is where being local counted. Our flexible, on-the-ground setup meant we could respond as it happened, emptying bins the moment they filled and moving the waste to nearby storage points for collection later.
That one step kept the street bins empty and ready, even at the busiest times. Agile and adaptable: no waiting on a lorry from a distant depot, just sensible local action when it mattered.
Recycling done properly
We also recycled it properly. By separating the aluminium and glass on the day, we kept the recycling clean and its value high, rather than letting everything end up mixed together and downgraded.
It takes a bit of extra effort, but far more of the waste actually gets recycled as a result.
Aluminium cans separated out for recycling
Waste cleared from the street and moved to a storage point
Recycling set aside for collection later
The result: not a single overflowing bin
Our objective was simple: no overflowing bins during the day. We're pleased to say we managed exactly that.
It came down to a team of enthusiastic local volunteers and a strong sense of community, with everyone pulling together for the town they love.
A spotless town the next morning
The proof came the next morning. Plenty of residents remarked on how tidy the town looked: no scattered litter, no overflowing bins, just Tetbury at its best.
Because the waste had been emptied and taken to storage points all through the day, the busy hours looked after themselves, and the clean-up afterwards was simple.
The day showed what local, coordinated action can do. A small local team that knows the town, can adapt on the spot and genuinely cares about the result is exactly what kept Tetbury looking its best.
The CO₂ story behind the cans and glass
Separating the aluminium and glass matters for the climate too, not just for tidiness. Recycling aluminium uses up to 95% less energy than making it from raw materials, and a single recycled can saves enough energy to run a television for about three hours.
Glass is much the same. Recycled glass melts at a lower temperature, which cuts the energy and the CO₂ that go into every new bottle and jar. Every can and bottle we kept clean and separated is carbon saved.
Thank you
A big thank you to the Woolsack Organising Committee for the superb organisation that made the whole event run so smoothly. None of this works without that groundwork.
Our amazing volunteers, Allie, Rich and Fergus, deserve a special mention. They were a huge help during the peak times of the event and were very effective.
A heartfelt thanks to Tetbury Goods Shed for their continued support in facilitating our local, sustainable efforts to keep Tetbury and the Cotswolds clean and green.
We're already looking forward to next year: building on this experience, growing the volunteer team, and making an already brilliant event even tidier and greener.
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