Contributed by Edwin, Year 9.
On a morning in Brighton you might see three groups searching along the beach and picking it clean. Alongside the seagulls, and the metal detectorists, there is the third group – armed with long grabbers, gloves and bin bags. These are the volunteer beach cleaners.
The Marine Conservation Society Great British Beach Clean 2020 is 18th to 25th September this year, but lots of large organised events are cancelled because of the pandemic. However, the regular cleans organised by Surfers Against Sewage in Brighton were still taking place, and I went down to their event on Sunday 20th September.
The SAS beach clean is very well organised. You can borrow grabbers and gloves and you are given strong bin bags. Then you have up to two hours to pick up as much litter as possible.
Litter in the sea is a big problem for marine life. According to the Marine Conservation Society 90% of seabirds, 56% of whales and dolphins and 50% of marine turtles have plastic in their stomachs. Joining in a beach clean is a really good way to help the environment, and you get to spend a few hours walking on the beach, so it’s good exercise too. There were people of all ages taking part on Sunday.
As well as rubbish you can find some interesting things on the beach (amazing pebble art, and skate and shark egg cases which you can record with The Shark Trust. Sometimes there can also be dangerous items such as used drug needles, broken glass and other nasty waste so you need to be aware.
At the end of the clean the volunteers would normally take the rubbish to be sorted for recycling but that is not possible at the moment.
If you take part you can also get a free Atlantic beer or soft drink afterwards from the beach bar!
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The next Surfers Against Sewage Brighton beach clean is Saturday 24th October. If you want to join in details are on Facebook. https://fb.me/e/ck24IsTEc
