Friends of Shoreham Beach take part each year in the Marine Conservation Society - Great British Beach Clean http://www.mcsuk.org/beachwatch/greatbritishbeachclean
This year the local event was on 18th September, and organised by John Charlish committee
member Friends of Shoreham Beach.
Also this year I was able to come along to help with the planned
beach clean to provide a deeper awareness and understanding of the global and
local problems caused by plastic. The event base was set up alongside the
recently constructed boardwalk (which is actually made from recycled plastic)
The display stand also included pictures and information
from the One World One Ocean Project and Ed the Bear.
I have been send Ed the Bear to scientists around the world to find our about the ocean and ocean conservation which we then share at events and visiting schools using to
create links between the local and global, a celebration of the ocean which includes
a focus on conservation issues explored first hand. http://seawatch17.wixsite.com/one-world-one-ocean and http://adventuresofedthebear.blogspot.co.uk/
This also included local
and global examples of plastic debris (including plastic strapping which came
from cape fur seals that were entangled in the plastic, plastic incidents
around the world including the necklace gifted to Ed the Bear while in Hawaiian
islands – made from a numbered scientific leg band from an albatross chick that
died from swallowing plastic.
Ed raises awareness of the plight of these majestic
birds and also about the dangers to UK sea birds such as fulmar. There was also
a big focus on micro plastics – from how large plastics items degrade into
spammer items (which can be ingested) and also micro beads and other human
sources.
Part of the display also focused on the fact that not everything
you find on the beach is rubbish – focusing on ray, dogfish, whelk and similar
egg cases that look like they are plastic.
I spoke to the participants about plastic pollution as they
gathered awaiting the start of the beach clean. This included explaining about
micro plastics and how the smaller items on the beach are often more dangerous
to local marine life.
After a briefing by John the participants, armed with a
large bags, gloves and grabbers, started the beach clean.
They were divided
into two groups, one group which would undertake the finger-tip litter pick
survey which would be sent to MCS, the remained cleaned the beach outside of
this designated area.
I remained by the stand for a while and spoke to members
of the public passing along the boardwalk.
I then headed off down the far end of the beach clean
boundary to check up and support the volunteers, as well as answer questions
and share information.
I walked back with the last of the volunteers as they returned
with their bags of debris and returned the grabbers.
A final chance to talk to
participants before the event ended. A large amount of debris was removed from
the beach – however there were fewer large items found this time – so maybe the
message is getting across. This meant we collected a lot of smaller items of plastic.
We still have to tally up the amount of litter collected and the result of the marine litter survey. The bags of litter collected will be collected for us by Adur District Council. It was a very successful day.
