Living in Cornwall, we make use of the beautiful Cornish beaches on a regular basis. Whether it’s taking children for a beach day in the Summer holidays, or a brisk Winter’s walk with the dogs, we are on them all year round. Pollution on our beaches and in our oceans is a huge problem worldwide. It’s killing marine life, wildlife that lives upon the shores, and birds that use the seas and shoreline to feed. It’s estimated that at the moment, there are around 269,000 tonnes of macro and microplastics floating in our oceans.
We are pleased to join in with the Surfers Against Sewage Mini Beach Cleans campaign #minibeachclean whenever we visit the beach. You don’t need to wait for organised beach clean’s to get involved. Visit their #minibeachclean page to read their advice on cleaning up your local beaches. As a house clearance company in Cornwall, we aim to actively recycle as much of the waste we collect as possible.
In the last couple of weeks here in Cornwall we’ve been hit by Storm Eleanor, which whipped up a frenzy on our coastlines. These storms can obviously change our coastlines quite dramatically and have damaged a few beauty spots, most notably Portreath, a small village with an easily accessible beach. Perranporth also took a lot with the swell and the sea has crafted huge cliffs of sand on the beach. These large storms bring in a fair amount of litter which has been at sea. There have been several groups of people trawling Portreath to clear up this extra rubbish which has been brought in with the tide.
Even if all you are armed with is a small bag, pick up whatever plastics you see, and dispose of them in a bin when you leave the beach. This short walk along a beach in Hayle resulted in finding an old plastic lighter, two plastic bottle caps, a drinks can, old rope, a plastic hairbrush and some small broken bits of plastic.
It’s a great way to get children involved in a fun, educational activity that is helping remove plastics and rubbish from the seaside. Take a picture of them at work, or of your litter picking bags and post it to Facebook or Instagram to raise awareness, with the hashtag #minibeachclean and tag @SurfersAgainstSewage – another great account to follow is @2minutebeachclean and use their hashtag #2minutebeachclean
Remember – you can make a difference!
Take a look at these Plastic pollution statistics from Surfers Against Sewage.
- Plastic pollution can now be found on every beach in the world, from busy tourist beaches to uninhabited, tropical islands nowhere is safe.
- Scientists have recently discovered microplastics embedded deep in the Arctic ice.
- In 1950, the world’s population of 2.5 billion produced 1.5 million tons of plastic; in 2016, a global population of more than 7 billion people produced over 320 million tons of plastic. This is set to double by 2034.
- Every day approximately 8 million pieces of plastic pollution find their way into our oceans.
- There may now be around 5.25 trillion macro and microplastic pieces floating in the open ocean. Weighing up to 269,000 tonnes
- Plastics consistently make up 60 to 90% of all marine debris studied
- Approx 5000 items of marine plastic pollution have been found per mile of beach in the UK
- Over 150 plastic bottles litter each mile of UK beaches.
- Recent studies have revealed marine plastic pollution in 100% of marine turtles, 59% of whales, 36% of seals and 40% of seabird species examined and 100,000 marine mammals and turtles and 1 million sea birds are killed by marine plastic pollution annually