Ruth Major, 79, started her campaign to “beautify Britain” after seeing a man in France do something similar.
For the last seven years she has travelled around the country collecting around 100,000 pieces of rubbish – and doing it all for free on her bus pass.
Her recent challenge saw her travel on 59 buses from her home in Redruth, Cornwall, to Berwick-upon-Tweed on the border – where her bus pass stops working.
Ruth, a retired teacher, said: “It’s been an amazing adventure.
“I had a fantastic time.
“Everywhere has it’s own beauty but it’s blighted by rubbish.
“We can beautify our country.”
Ruth began travelling around using her bus pass in May 2016 after wanting to visit family who had lived in Paignton.
While on her journey she saw an article about a campaign in France encouraging people to pick up one piece of rubbish a day and decided to do the same in the UK.
She used her bus pass to get around and stayed in properties owned by the Hanover Housing Association, where she is a resident, for a cheap price.
Ruth shared photos of rubbish on her social media as she went along.
She said: “It naturally came together as a project.
“I thought, I’m going to call to beautify Britain.”
Ruth was living in Oldham, Greater Manchester, at the time but when Covid hit she moved down to Cornwall to be closer to family.
After the pandemic she looked at where she still wanted to go to look into her family history and decided to travel up the country.
She spent three weeks travelling up to Berwick-upon-Tweed and visited many towns and cities, including Weymouth, Southampton, Derby, Sheffield, Scarborough and Newcastle in July 2023.
Ruth said: “We can all do something.
“We can’t allow the few to make it a mess.”
Ruth is asking everyone to pick up a piece of rubbish a day and is nicknamed “Rubbish Ruth”.
She is already planning her next challenge to use the buses and travel around the country picking up rubbish.
