RECENTLY I attended a beach clean, run by Surfers Against Sewage.

This was part of a national tour that they are carrying out to raise awareness of litter and marine pollution.

SAS beach clean and education events are a fun way of mobilising coastal communities, surfers, water sports enthusiasts and environmentalists to tackle the dramatically escalating problem of marine litter impacting UK beaches & surf spots.

They are also a very effective platform to help individuals understand how they can best help protect our precious beaches and coastlines on a day-to-day basis.

Over 60 volunteers turned up to join in the event.

Bournemouth Council had told the SAS that the beach was 'completely clean' and that it was 'pointless' to hold a beach clean.

Sadly none of us were surprised by what we found, with hundreds of bottle caps and tops, plastics, straws and broken glass. What we were all shocked and upset to see though was the sheer number of cigarette butts!

In two short hours we removed almost 5,000 from a fairly small section of Boscombe beach!

Cigarette butts are made up of 15,000 plastic fibres and will take up to 12 years to break down in the marine environment.

Each individual butt will pollute up to 10 litres of water.

I certainly couldn't describe this as a clean beach so how do Bournemouth Council manage?

DAVID BROWN, Covena Road, Bournemouth