The 2nd annual Nitro Dublin Canal clean up took place this week as part of the Nitro Gives program, and members of our EMEA HQ took a few hours out of their day to ensure the Dublin Grand Canal was spick and span.
The Grand Canal in Dublin is a wonder of 18th century engineering skills, running right through the heart of the south of the city. Dotted with curved bridges and the odd barge making its way through, it is really home to ducks and swans. It is truly a fantastic amenity for the city.
With its footpaths being well-travelled routes, however, the canal gets its fair share of rubbish—and with volunteer groups only able to tend to it once a month, it’s up to companies like Nitro to lend a helping hand.
The 15th of July was set as the date with the hope that we wouldn’t encounter a typical Irish summer’s day of rain!
Thankfully, come the afternoon of the 15th the sun was shining as the EMEA Nitronauts donned their Nitro Gives t-shirts and headed off down the canal. Armed with litter pickers, scoopers, sweeping brushes and bags, our 2km route taking us both sides of the canal from Ranelagh bridge down to Baggot Street bridge.
The clean-up started well, fishing the usual drink bottles, plastic bags and sandwich wrappers out of the canal and picking up bits of rubbish from the pavement. Further down the canal something a little bit different was spotted lurking amongst the reeds, a shoe! A desperate attempt to fish it out ensued, resulting in two team members, quite literally, dipping their toes in the water. However, despite valiant attempts unfortunately we were defeated.
A wider variety of ‘trash’ was found though, from the normal to the quite unusual including an old pharmacy bottle, an eye mask, a wheel and to top it all off a love note from 2013!
After a few hours cleaning it was mission accomplished. Our trash bags satisfactorily filled and ready to be collected we headed to a watering hole to have a few well-earned refreshments!
The Dublin canal clean-up was a Nitro Gives initiative that enables us to give something back to the community in which we work in.
The Nitro Gives Program covers a range of initiatives including Volunteering Time Off, Donation Matching and Software Licensing Donations. The program centers around and supports a number of core values including, Education, Community and Environment. Nitro Gives is owned by the People Operations Team and is a core element of Nitro’s Employee Experience Hierarchy of Needs.
