HELPING TO CLEAN UP OUR COAST AND COUNTRYSIDE
This has been a very busy weekend for me as I spent most of my time doing beach cleans as part of World Clean Up Day. As a member of Plastic Free Communities in West Somerset, there were organised beach cleans at Minehead (Saturday morning) and Watchet (Sunday morning) which I joined in with and each day had a good turnout of volunteers willing to help out. Both events started with a 100m sweep of a section of beach to look for all types of litter and micro plastics as well as a general litter pick of the local area. As always, there was plenty to collect, especially cigarette butts where the majority of smokers do not realise how damaging the discarded cigarette is to the marine environment.
On Saturday afternoon, I made my first ever trip to Stolford Beach to see what litter I might find there. Once on the beach, immediately I found plenty of plastic and a different type of litter I'm used to finding. A couple of large cable ties but then so many more plus two pairs of safety goggles and remains of a tape measure. There were other items which seem more connected to the construction industry which I don't normally find on the West Somerset coastline. It maybe a coincidence but with Hinkley Point just a mile down the coast from here, I guess that might be the problem. I struggled back to the car with my first haul before going back to get a couple of other pieces I wanted to get before the high tide took them away. I'm hoping to get back there next weekend to continue along the coast from where I left off. Today (Sunday) after lunch, I decided to have an afternoon walk at Dunster Beach along towards Minehead. I didn't plan it to be a beach clean so didn't take my litter picking equipment but all the same, made sure I put a couple of sacks in my pocket. I walked along the edge of the incoming tide picking up a plastic bottle as I walked down the pebble bank. a bit further on, I saw spotted something floating in on the tide and saw it was a worker's helmet. I had to wade in to get it so carried it along with me towards Minehead and kept seeing other items along the high tide mark o on my return had to get a sack from my pocket and do an unplanned litter pick. Another thing I found was a huge amount of tangled fishing line which I collected up. By the time I got back to Dunster Beach, I had a sack full of plastic which will be sorted and recycled by the children at school in their marine environment study coming up in a couple of weeks.
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AuthorBorn in West Somerset, I have always been proud of where I live and want everyone else to enjoy it too! Archives
September 2022
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