'Wet wipe island' on famous UK river finally cleared of 5 million wipes

Approximately five million wet wipes have finally been removed from the River Thames in an area of the famous UK river dubbed 'Wet Wipe Island'. Diggers have pulled 114 tonnes of waste out of the water from the river banks as a major project to remove it reaches completion.

Congealed rubbish equivalent to around five million wet wipes were removed along a 820ft (250m) stretch of the foreshore near Hammersmith Bridge in west London. The three-week project was the country's first mass wet wipe removal project of its kind, which scooped up everything from towels, scarves, trousers, a car's engine timing belt and even a set of false teeth. The two eight-tonne excavators used a "rake and shake" method to scoop out wet wipes from the natural sediment and riverbed.

The island, which was about the size of two tennis courts and up to one metre deep in places, is thought to have changed the course of the river and potentially harmed nearby aquatic wildlife and ecology.

Environment group Thames21 and its volunteers campaigned for its removal for years while monitoring the build-up of wet wipes, and researching how those containing plastic can degrade the environment.

The Port of London Authority led the three-week project, which began on August 11, in collaboration with Thames21 and Thames Water.

On Thursday, they announced that 114 tonnes of rubbish were cleared from the river and taken away in skips to landfill, including almost 200 cubic metres of wet wipes containing plastics.

Grace Rawnsley, Port of London Authority's director of sustainability, said: "After months of planning and hard work, we're so pleased to have finally been able to clear this stretch of the Thames.

"The reaction of local communities - and of people across the country and beyond - has been really encouraging but also slightly incredulous that this work was needed in the first place.

"As a business which reinvests all the money we make back into the river and its communities, we are proud to have been able to drive forward this first-of-its-kind project and, while at times the work was pretty gross, it was well worth it to help clean the river."

The Government earlier this year published draft legislation banning wet wipes that contain plastic.