Trash Free Trails

As an outdoor retailer, to us the outdoors is everything. It’s at the heart of who we are and what we do. Our mission is to help people make the most of the outdoors, and we know that to do that, we have to do our bit for the planet. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Trash Free Trails and The North Face to help people engage with the outdoors in a fun way whilst making a positive difference to the environment.

Trash Free Trails are a community-focused, non-profit organisation who exist to protect our trails. They’re on a mission to reduce plastic pollution in nature by 75% by 2025 whilst helping people connect with the outdoors.

If there’s one activity that defines and encapsulates the essence of Trash Free Trails, it’s the simple act of removing single-use pollution from the places we love, one bag at a time. As part of their upcoming Spring Trail Clean, we’re encouraging all our customers to make a difference by taking part in their One Bag Challenge. 

The amount of litter left on our trails can often feel overwhelming. How often have you stopped at a beauty spot, paused at the side of a trail, or just looked down whilst walking and experienced the sight of crisp packets, plastic bottles or cans? Psychologically, it can feel like a problem so large, one person alone can never fight the tide. But if the current litter problem is the result of millions of acts of carelessness, Trash Free Trails aims to counter that with even more acts of care.

Their Spring Trail Clean One Bag Challenge is an opportunity for everyone to make a positive impact on the trails and wild places we care about. During April, we’re simply asking you to conduct a trail clean in your local area and fill up one bag with any single-use pollution that you find. Whether it’s a five-minute activity at the end of a run or a day-long adventure, something you do alone or a good excuse to get some friends together - we don’t mind! If you do that just once in April, you’ll have made a positive impact. If you do it twice - great! Our trails will be all the more healthy for it. There are no rules.

Trash Free trails have a brilliant toolkit that provides you with all the information, inspiration and tools you need to protect and enhance the trails you care about, in a way that works for you. The good news is we already have everything we need in our heads, hearts, hands and homes to get started.

Check out these 9 steps to a safe, effective and enjoyable trail clean or watch the videos below for more advice on how to set yourself on the path to achieving cleaner trails for everyone to enjoy. And once you’ve done it, don’t forget to shout about it on social media by tagging us on Instagram @CotswoldOutdoor, @trashfreetrails, #jointhetrashmob, #trashfreetrail and log all your finds using the State of Our Trails Report here. Happy spring cleaning!

Find out more about Trash Free Trails.

Supporting environmental initiatives like Trash For Trails is just one part of our overall sustainability mission. As a responsible retailer, we also want to make it easier for you to make more sustainable choices when it comes to your kit. For your next adventure, our in-store experts can help you make the right choice, first time around, and with our sustainable in-store aftercare, repair and recycling services, we can also help keep it performing longer and out of landfill.

Read more about our sustainability mission.