'Urban mermaid' swimming Thames for pollution awareness campaign visits Maidenhead

An ‘urban mermaid’ swam ashore and met with some two-legged counterparts on Monday.

Lindsey Cole decided to swim the 200-mile length of the River Thames dressed as a mermaid to highlight how plastic is ‘choking our mermaids and creatures in our waters’.

She is swimming alongside a support canoe manned by Barbara de Moubray, who is collecting plastics in the water and adding them to a mermaid sculpture made of plastic bottles.

The pair set off on Thursday, November 1 from the source of the river and aim to complete the challenge at Teddington Lock.

On Monday morning she met pupils at Claires Court Junior Boys.

On her Facebook page, she said: “Kids’ brains are like sponges and they all said they’re gonna make a conscious effort to recycle and tell their parents to not buy plastic bottles of water.”

Before she jumped back into the water at Bray Marina on her way to Windsor she met the group Plastic Free Maidenhead, whose mission is to ‘get single use plastic out of Maidenhead’.

Lisa Walden is the committee leader for the group and said what Lindsey and Barbara are doing is ‘phenomenal’.

She added: “We’ve become a very disposable society and become very consumer focused. We get what we want immediately with no consequence for the environment.

“It needs people to take a step back and think about their actions on the environment and their lifestyle.”

Plastic Free Maidenhead will be at Maidenhead Farmer's Market in Grove Road Car Park, off Park Street, on Sunday, December 9 from 10am to 1pm.

Find out more at www.facebook.com/PlasticFreeMaidenhead/