Hoverflies, shield bugs and froghoppers filled The Butts in Alton on July 23 as children and adults took up environmentalist Sabú’s offer of free face painting during the Alton Climate Action Network’s Eco-Streets launch party.

Eco-Streets is a community project in The Butts area of Whitedown ward led by environmentalist Scott Gudrich which aims to find out where its residents stand on the climate crisis, what the problems are for them and what action they want to take.

Visitors were asked to distribute nine beans across nine bottles according to which climate change aspects most interested them, and to decide how many of ten plastic containers could be recycled in East Hampshire District Council’s wheelie bins.

Two and a half of them can be recycled here – all ten can be in Germany.

A plan of the neighbourhood was on display for visitors to add stickers where they thought the environment could be improved – be it fewer cars on the streets, areas to be re-wilded or other ideas.

Young ACAN organised a children’s nature trail and there were games such as knocking down a pyramid of tin cans or throwing water-filled plastic bottles in a bin. So many children wanted to try out ACAN’s litter picking equipment that The Butts was quickly spotless.

There was also music from Martian Max, and Scott and Sabú – better known as The Lürxx.

In a speech, Young ACAN ambassador Isobel Goldie said: “There is a lot we can do on a community level and an individual basis. We have a large and beautiful planet and if everyone does their bit and looks after their local areas, it will make a difference.”