Our Beach Care Officer is always out on the beach carrying out litter picks alongside the general public, schools, universities, businesses and community groups. In 2021 we managed 113 beach cleans with 1496 volunteer days and collected a staggering 1309 bags of rubbish.

Evidence suggests that 80% of the rubbish we find on our beaches comes from land based sources, ie. down rivers, blown by the wind etc. The remainder is made up from discarded fishing material (nets and pots), shipping, angling line and sewage related debris.

Whatever the reason it ends up on the beach it’s dangerous to animals and and humans alike. Nets can become entanglement hazards for marine mammals, animals inadvertently consume small pieces of plastic and ultimately end up in the food chain.

Plastic found on the beaches are mostly plastic bottles and food packaging, once in the sea they break down into smaller micro plastics and will remain in the environment forever. We try to recycle as much plastic as we can on our clean-ups.

A full list of our beach cleans can be found on the events section.