'My dog inspired my 10-year litter-picking crusade'

Ten years ago, Lancashire man Wayne Dixon decided to give it all up and make a difference along the coast of Britain.

Wayne and his dog Koda, a Northern Inuit, were on a mission to pick up rubbish, and raise awareness about littering.

After travelling around 4,000 miles, (6,437km) the Covid pandemic put a stop to their efforts and the pair never actually completed walking the full length of the coast.

Koda died in 2025, and Wayne describes the five years they spent as "the best thing I've ever done."

The decision to do the challenge came when the former support worker's dad passed away suddenly and saw him inherit Koda, whom he described as a catalyst for scratching the "itch" he had to walk the coast.

Aged 45 at the time, he said: "I found myself with Koda and I looked at the dynamics of what I had and I just saw the opportunity, I just knew I had the perfect friend."

It was not long before their efforts were noticed online, and soon wherever they turned up, people "were very welcoming" and he picked up "every single piece of litter I walked past."

He said: "I remember a time in Wales I didn't see my tent for about four months because people were putting me up and if they'd put me up, I'd do anything that they'd asked, so I'd clean up their area, and do school talks."

Wayne remembers noticing a difference in the types of litter he would encounter too, especially along the coast: "Walking along the coast you could see the world litter which was coming up on the coastlines, I learned a lot about sea litter."

In 2020 the pandemic hit and the pair were forced to come home, back to Darwen.

Wayne had also picked up an injury which would have put an end to the walk had Covid not intervened.

Being back in Lancashire did not deter them though, and they continued to pick up litter in and around their local area, and Wayne even started guerrilla gardening: "If there's a little patch of grass that's ignored I'll do that up and turn that into a garden."

Last year, Koda passed away and Wayne is now looking to the future.

He hopes to move to Fleetwood and be near the coast so he can continue his hobby of whittling driftwood and also collecting rubbish.

He said: "That will be my way of meeting people in the community, people will gravitate to me naturally, if you're feeling lonely, you're a bit isolated pick up litter - people will talk to you."

Does he have any regrets about not getting to complete the walk?

"I'm quite happy because I'm the only person in the world that's done it, that's attempted to do it and maybe I've left the gauntlet open for somebody else to complete it.

"Maybe there's a young person out there who wants to do something nobody else has ever done."