In 2011 the Marine Conservation Society embarked on a three-year partnership with high street giant Marks and Spencer’s. Their latest initiative is the Big Beach Clean-up that will see hundreds of M&S staff and volunteers cleaning beaches across the UK.

In rain or shine, last week, over 110 beaches saw enthusiastic volunteers filling bin bags with unwanted litter. Fishing nets, bottles and ropes are some of the most common items found littering our beaches. Last year 2, 177 bin bags were filled with rubbish from beaches across the UK.

Over 40 volunteers attended the Big Beach Clean up at Solent Beach, Southborne on April 26, collecting 80 kg of litter. The most common item of litter found on Solent Beach was plastic. It is thought that a plastic carrier bag dropped 20 years ago may not break down in the sea in our lifetime.

During the clean up on Solent Beach some volunteers had a rare sighting of a Sand Lizard. This emphasises the importance of keeping the beaches clean to ensure that rare creatures such as the Sand Lizard, do not harm themselves by ingesting the litter.

Last year an array of unusual items were discovered. These included a set of false teeth and half a sofa in Edinburgh, a cabinet near Liverpool, a ten-pin bowling ball in Deal, a carpet in Clacton and a pink thong on Shoreham beach. Marks and Spencer’s alone is taking a strong approach in protecting our sea life and beaches with its Forever Fish campaign.

 

Daniel Hemsworth a spokesman for Marks and Spencer highlights the companies key involvement in keeping our beaches clean and safe, “through the Forever Fish campaign we’re investing over £3 million over three years in this campaign to help our customers and their children learn more about fish, clean our beaches and protect UK marine life by working with WWF and MCS.”

The Forever Fish campaign is funded by the 5p carrier charge in the M&S food halls, which support an education programme to protect the marine environment. This year’s beach cleanup hopes to have attracted more volunteers. Daniel shares, “We are very keen for as many people as possible to get involved, both employees and customers. We had 6,000 join us last year and we aimed for over 10,000 this year. We’re helping our customers live a more sustainable lifestyle.”

Trevor Dixon has worked in marine conservation for most of his life. For 25 years he worked as a consultant for the Keep Britain Tidy Group.

He awarded Bournemouth its first ever Blue Flag. The Blue Flag is awarded to beaches that meet certain criteria. These include having a high standard of environmental education, water quality, environment management, safety and services.

Trevor says that, “The Blue Flag award was the first attempt at an eco label. Although it has never got to the point of rewarding a beach with 0% contamination there is a gradual decrease in the contamination level of our beaches.”

He explains further the impact that a single plastic bottle can have on our oceans. “We completed a study looking at the mobility of surface floating litter such as a plastic bottle. We discovered that an average plastic bottle, such as a shampoo bottle has a high mobility of 30%.

"We placed a number of plastic bottles in the sea at The Strait of Dover one ended up on the coast of The Shetland Islands, Calais and Belgium. In only the space of a few days the bottles had polluted another coastline.”

This alone highlights how Marine Conservation is a global issue. Trevor understands the importance of removing litter from our beaches, as the impact of litter on Marine life is horrifying. “Seals often get entangled in fishing gear and small pieces of polystyrene have also ended up in birds.”

Emma Bennett