In This Article
Why is beach cleaning so important?
What’s it like to do a beach clean?
If you keep a close eye on our social pages, you’ll know that one of our team did some reporting live from a beach clean on Shoreham beach.
Hannah looks after our Green People social pages and, as part of our ongoing commitment to safeguarding our shores and marine life, she joined Revital and the Marine Conservation Society to participate in the Great British Beach Clean 2021.
Here, Hannah reveals what she found on the beach and explains how rewarding it was to participate in an autumnal beach clean team.
Why is beach cleaning so important?
Our charity partner, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), organises an annual beach clean that takes place every September. Keen to support this incredible conservation effort, I joined a local beach clean at Shoreham Beach.
The Sussex beach clean that I attended removed a mighty haul of 7kg of rubbish from the beach including wet wipes, lolly sticks, glass bottles and items of clothing. If left on the shoreline, this discarded waste may have entered our seas and posed a threat to the marine life.
Graphs supplied by Marine Conservation Society’ Shoreham Great British Beach Clean Survey https://www.mcsuk.org/accounts/login/?next=/litter-surveys/d817a7dc-eebe-41f8-a289-f2ea21dcdd48/
What’s it like to do a beach clean?
If you do a beach clean, you can expect to feel like part of a team that’s making a real difference to health of our shores and seas. The beach clean I participated in was a real team effort and it took 23 volunteers to clean just 70m of shoreline.
This was my first beach clean and at first the beach didn’t look messy at all, and I initially thought we would hardly collect anything. I was wrong! Once you got in between the rocks you could see how dirty the beach really was.
It was so rewarding knowing that we’d removed over 800 items from the beach. Almost 300 items were found to be items left behind by the public and it was a humbling reminder of how much harm humans can do to our planet.
One item I was keeping an eye out for as I scanned the beach for little was discarded face masks. Use of these PPE items has increased in recent years and the MCS fears that littering of face masks could leave ocean life under threat.
“Following over a year of Covid restrictions we know we have a challenge on our hands – last year 30% of our beach cleans found PPE, and this year we expect to see more.” The Marine Conservation Society.
Join the Source to Sea Litter Quest
During the pandemic Britian’s beautiful beaches offered a relaxing escape from our worries and many of us have great memories of spending UK staycations building sandcastles by the shores or splashing in freezing cold seas.
The MCS fears that if litter rates continue to rise, beaches could become unpleasant places not only for us humans, but for the marine life that calls UK seas and shorelines home.
To address this, the MCS is calling on everyone to participate in their new litter tracking campaign. If you’ve spotted a little problem in your local street, park or beach, please help the MCS to address this by reporting your find to Source to Sea Litter Quest. A new initiative by the MCS, it hopes to lift the lid on 80% of litter that will eventually end up on Britain’s beaches.
"Our surveys reveal where the rubbish on our beaches comes from. If we can stop the litter at source we can make beaches in the UK cleaner and safer places for tourists and visitors.” –The Marine Conservation Society.
Support the Marine Conservation Society
If you're interested in doing your part for Britain's beaches and wildlife and want to volunteer with MCS then all details of how you can become a Beachwatch volunteer are on their website.
To support the work of the Marine Conservation Society, Green People donates 20p from the sale of every Adult Scent Free Sun Cream and Children’s Scent Free Sun Cream to this worthy cause.
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Find out more about our natural, reef-safe sun creams or, for more information, get in touch with our friendly UK customer care team on 01403 740350.
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