Daniel Lewis

16 year old Daniel Lewis from Treharris, Merthyr Tydfil has always cared about the community and the local environment. From a young age, he volunteered at Parc Taf Bargoed and was presented with a Green Flag Award for his voluntary efforts in 2020. 

During lockdown, he started a campaign to clean up fly-tipping hotspots within the Merthyr Borough. Through fundraising and working with local businesses, he has successfully removed over 25 tonnes of illicit waste on the Merthyr & Gelligaer Common.

Not only has Daniel spent many hours cleaning up fly-tips on his own, he has also organised group events encouraging local residents and even supporters from as far afield as Wolverhampton to travel to Wales to assist him with his efforts.

He has also successfully run a community skip scheme, providing free skips for local residents in villages in the Lower Merthyr Borough. Daniel has also provided a free community tyre skip at Cyfarthfa Park for Merthyr Borough residents to dispose of their unwanted tyres. This was something he chose to do after seeing piles of tyres illicitly dumped on the Merthyr Common.

Daniel has also focused on preventing fly-tipping by installing overt solar-powered CCTV systems close to fly-tipping hotspots on the common. Any evidence captured on the CCTV cameras are passed onto the local authority and police to pursue a prosecution.

Daniel has also designed anti fly-tipping signage which can be seen along with the cameras on the common.