Lend a hand in the Great British Beach Clean 2016

Be part of the biggest and most influential fight against marine litter in the country; the UK’s leading marine charity, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), is looking for volunteers to register for a trip to the beach!

There’s no doubt that being by the sea makes us feel better, and the Great British Beach Clean (16-19 September) isn’t just a good day out for people who love the coast, it benefits the beach too.

The Great British Beach Clean is the only UK-wide beach clean that not only spruces up hundreds of beaches around the coast but records the litter finds as part of a global beach clean count.

Plastic bottles and carrier bags, nappies, balloons, and tiny plastic pieces can be found on almost every beach in the UK – either washed up, blown there or dropped. Our beaches have never been so filthy, and most of the litter found can be traced back to us, the general public!

“Beach litter has steadily risen over the two decades we’ve been recording it on UK beaches. In fact, we saw some of the highest litter levels ever last year with 3,298 items picked up per kilometre we surveyed,” says MCS Beachwatch Manager, Lauren Eyles. “Last year’s Great British Beach Clean attracted 6,035 volunteers cleaning 340 beaches – the most in our 22-year history of running clean-ups.”

MCS says cleaning and surveying a beach only takes a couple of hours at most. Each beach has a coordinator, who explains how to fill in a simple data form, and then it’s just a case of grabbing a litter picker and a bin bag and filling it up with rubbish.

Volunteers are also asked to record any branded items they find, to enable MCS to approach specific manufacturers and retailers and look at ways they can work with them to reduce the amount of rubbish from their products reaching our beaches.

“Beach litter is a serious environmental problem,” says Lauren Eyles. “But the solution is in our hands. The first step is to register as a volunteer. We want the ‘Great British Beach Clean’ weekend to offer a snapshot of what the future could look like for the British seaside by reducing the amount of litter that reaches our shores.

Find out more at www.mcsuk.org/greatbritishbeachclean or telephone 01989 566017.