Save our Camden Canal Bins!

Recently we were told that the nine remaining bins (originally 39) along the stretch of canal between King's Cross and Little Venice, were all to be removed in their entirety. And that the street cleaner and refuse collector, James Harris (above) was to be removed from his job, taking care of this stretch of water. A job that he has done lovingly, diligently, and with great pride for over 15 years. This decision by the Canal and River Trust to allow Camden's canal to likely fall into the kind of garbage tips that we remember from the 70s and 80s is to be carried out throughout the London area.
The Canal and River Trust have said that instead of using paid workers to collect rubbish that has been placed into bins or dropped, it will now be using 'volunteer litter pickers', once a month to collect the rubbish left by London's residents and tourists.
The footfall between Camden market and Regents Park during the summer period can be in excess of 1000 people in a day; can it really be that the Canal and River Trust can expect that around 30,000 people a month will not leave their trace along the canals? Of course much of the rubbish that is left along our canal banks is kicked about or blown about by the wind and will finds it's way into the canal. A case in point is the cul-de-sac of water where the Chinese restaurant boat is at Regents Park. This area is unnavigable for the residents of those moorings and that is because the amount refuse that has been allowed to collect in that area is now to the top of the water, this is a surface area in the region of 200 ft.² x 6 feet deep that has literally become landfill because CRT have no interest in clearing the rubbish from it. If this is an example of CRT's rubbish clearance along the Regents Canal, then what can we expect when there are no more refuse collections and no more litter picking to be done on a daily basis throughout Central London?
In addition the legend that is James Harris who has been written about in the Camden New Journal and in the local magazine, On The Hill, and also appearing in television documentaries, will no longer be here with his smiling face and his happy demeanour, keeping our Central London Canal, beautiful. James is a legend, he's not just a street sweeper he is part of the life of the canal and London's community.
The Canal and River Trust is planning a £130k cut in litter services and bins in London, including, sacking of up to 6 litter pickers and bin staff. In 2018/19 Chief executive Richard Parry was paid £214,155 for the year, up from £210,091 the previous year. If cuts are so necessary then perhaps the CRT executive might look closer to home. We need bins and we need cleaners and we need James! Keep London Beautiful. Save our Bins! Please sign our petition to protect London's waterways and save one of London's great, loved characters from being turned out to pasture!