Dozens of shopping trollies from big name retailers have ended up blighting a nature reserve, posing a risk to wildlife, having been dumped by thoughtless shoppers.

Alan Preece, the senior warden at the Saltwells Nature Reserve in Brierley Hill, and a hardy band of volunteers, have pulled the trollies out of brooks, hedges and ditches around the beauty spot. Around 30 trolleys were rounded up during a clean-up operation.

They are thought to have been dumped by shoppers from the nearby Merry Hill shopping centre, with many ending up clogging brooks and streams around the site with a spike in trolley dumping over the Christmas period. Mr Preece said:

“They were found spread across the reserve, in brooks normally. They are either left in nearby housing estates and kids pick them up or just left down here. We collect them up, put them in a central location and arrange for them to be collected through the proper channels.”

“When you walk around a nature reserve you don’t come to see shopping trolleys. If there is a build up in the brooks it could cause the water levels to rise and all the plants and burrows would be flooded.”

It is thought many of the trolleys are used to transport heavy goods and are then discarded when they are no longer needed. Mr Preece added that irresponsible shoppers needed to think about what happens when trolleys are dumped. A spokesman from Marks and Spencer said:

“We are disappointed to hear about the situation at Saltwells Nature Reserve. As soon as M&S was informed of this matter we arranged for all the trollies to be removed.”

The clean-up was part of a wider project to improve the nature reserve which included hedge-laying which is hoped will boost numbers of birds and other wildlife.