An Accrington woman wants to spread positivity rather than 'rubbish', as she took to Church's canals to clear fly-tipping with her family.

Sara Hanson, 29, took to social media on Friday, sharing the positivity behind clearing up fly-tipped rubbish saying it 'costs nothing to do a kind act'.

Her social media post said: "Spreading positivity not rubbish, ‘get it’.

"If you’ve walked on Church’s canals any time recently you would have seen how disgustingly bad litter is.

"My mum and sister, her three and eight year old children and I spent 10 minutes of our day picking empty beer cans up and litter around one half of the canal. Two black bin bags full later and the place looks completely different.

"Instead of just walking by thinking it’s disgusting, take some time out of your day and do a little good, plus the kids actually really enjoyed themselves on a wet miserable day. It costs nothing to do a kind act.

Lancashire Telegraph: Jack litter picking behind the benchesJack litter picking behind the benches (Image: Sara Hanson)

"If anyone wants to carry on, cause there’s plenty more, if you leave the bin bags at the gate at the start of the canal I will collect happily and take to them to the tip."

Sara said it was a nice way for her niece and nephew, Rosie and Jack Morris, to learn about why flytipping is bad.

Sara said: "All you see these days is people being miserable, so I thought it is a nice thing to do with the children as well, as it gets them out of the house during half term and it also teaches them not litter.

"We did the clean-up last week, the children were off school and we were all going to spend the day together so I thought it would give us something to do and it is a nice positive thing to do as well.

"It makes you feel better to do nice things in life, so that's why we decided to do it.

"My sister already had some litter grabbers so we decided to go out and do it."

Sara said she wanted to spread the positive message to inspire others to also clean up their areas.

Lancashire Telegraph: Rosie, 3, and Jack Morris, 8Rosie, 3, and Jack Morris, 8 (Image: Sara Hanson)

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She said: "I wanted to spread the positive message because I knew other children would be off school and it is something for them to do.

"Not many people do nice things these days, so instead of complaining about it we thought we would do something about it.

"It took us 10 minutes out of our day to do something nice like that.

"I definitely recommned others to do the same, I just think it is our area of living so why would you want to walk past a load of litter?

"If you see litter on the floor just pick it up, I think nobody wants to live in a scruffy area.

"I walk past there everyday so I have seen it and thought 'that is so bad' and I've never done anything about it before, and then I thought 'no, I am going to do something about it'.

"It is having pride in the community and people should have pride and look after where they live, I want other people to get the idea to also do it."

Sara said the kids were apprehensive to join in at the start but they soon enjoyed themselves.

She said: "At the start of it my little eight year old nephew wasn't that enthralled, but afterwards he said he had such a good day and it was so fun.

"Picking up rubbish teaches them a lesson to not throw litter because of how hard it is to pick it up."