I've been on a volunteer 'litter pick' before now, several times. Can be quite an entertaining way of spending a morning. You never know what you're going to turn up (though - sorry to disappoint - the chances of a hoard of Roman coins are pretty slim
). I did find a perfectly serviceable sledgehammer once - an odd thing to cast away (one of my fellow volunteers took it off me, he said he had a use for it - I didn't ask what?!). And many years ago, on a different occasion, I turned up a glass mug - dirty but quite intact - emblazoned with the insignia of
King George VI's coronation. If it was an original, might have been worth a bob or two. Alas! As I was admiring my find, another volunteer on the slope above me let go of a big stone, it rolled down, struck my hand, and the mug was smashed.
But there can be an ironic twist to these litter-pick enterprises. On a more recent occasion, we'd spent a morning on a litter-pick organised by the Town Council, and piled all the rubbish into a skip. We later learnt that the County Council had deemed that the contents of the skip were
commercial waste, and they wanted to charge the Town Council at the going rate for taking it away. The skip remained by the roadside, uncollected, for several days of wrangling. We might as well not have bothered, it seemed. Eventually it disappeared. I don't know who coughed up what.