FIVE THINGS TO CARE ABOUT the beach conservation society
TAP TO DIVE IN!
>
PLAY VIDEO
1 BEACH LITTER...
AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL SINCE RECORDS BEGAN Litter is swamping our oceans and is washing up on beaches. It kills wildlife, looks disgusting, is a hazard to our health and costs millions to clear up.
pieces but does not disappear. Microplastic particles are now found inside filter feeding animals and amongst sand grains on our beaches. Litter comes from many sources - the public, fishing activities, sewage pipes and shipping, but it is all preventable.
There are nearly 2,000 items of rubbish for every kilometre on a beach. Marine wildlife gets entangled in Beach litter is made up of discarded objects that do litter and accidentally ingests it. Turtles mistake plastic CLOSE MENU not occur naturally in the marine and coastal environment. bags for jellyfish and the bags block their stomachs, often leading to death from starvation. Seabirds mistake Alarmingly, over the past 15 years the amount of marine litter washing up on UK beaches has almost floating plastic litter for food, and over 90% of fulmars found dead around the North Sea have plastic in their stomachs. doubled. Typical examples of marine litter include waste from beach users, sewage-related debris, UNIDENTIFIED RETURN TO BREAK THE BEATING THE BIG medical waste, shipping debris and fishing waste. Plastic litter on beaches has increased 140% since 1994. FLOATING OFFENDER BAG HABIT BEAD NORTH-EAST PlasticOBJECTS never biodegrades. It just breaks down into small CLEAN-UP
2
3
4
5
+
>
> TAP IMAGE
The vast majority of marine litter is plastic, which never truly breaks down. Experts suggest plastic left in the environment will be with us in some microscopic form many thousands of years.
Beach users have to be wary of injury from broken glass, rusting metal or discarded medical waste. We should also be aware that the beach is likely to suffer from sewage discharges if sewage-related debris such as cotton bud sticks or tampon applicators are present. Marine litter strewn all over a beach can also have a detrimental effect on tourism with visitors put off from using it for recreation.
When in the sea, plastics can also absorb toxic chemicals, becoming increasingly harmful over time, and often entering the food chain when mistaken for food items by fish, seabirds, marine mammals and other organisms. Over 100,000 marine mammals and over 1 million seabirds die every year from ingestion of and entanglement in marine litter. CLOSE MENU Plastic debris can be found littering coastlines all across the world’s oceans, even on the most far-flung and inaccessible of beaches. Plastic is not biodegradable and will degrade slower in the marine environment than UNIDENTIFIED RETURN TO BREAK THE on land. A normal plastic bottle may persist for more FLOATING OFFENDER BAG HABIT OBJECTS than 450 years if left on a beach.
2
3
4
Sources of marine litter*: 40.4% from the public 4.5% sewage related Debris 13.9% fishing litter 0.7% fly tipping 3.9% shipping 0.2% medical waste 36.3% non-sourced BEATING THE BIG NORTH-EAST (*BCS BEAD Beachaware Survey 2014) CLEAN-UP
5
+
>
> Taprogge Balls are used in cleaning pipes in power stations amongst other industrial systems. We are currently in dialogue with the Environment Agency on how to prevent the further escape of these balls into the marine environment.
!
more >>
2 UNIDENTIFIED FLOATING OBJECT The Unidentified Floating Object (UFO) campaign calls on trace the polluter and work with them to prevent these the public to help identify persistent, unidentified marine UFO invading our beaches in future. BCS are also calling on beach users all over the UK to be vigilant for regular litter from our beaches and report their own UFOs, in the MENU CLOSE hope that BCS can trace the source of the litter and hold alien landings when on their local beaches! the polluters to account! The campaigns team have been working hard on identifying both of our current objects and has recently The BCS team have already captured two types of the name and source mysterious UFO and are calling on our TO supporters to BREAK help discovered BEACH RETURN THE BEATING THE of the blue foam BIG balls washing up nationwide. identifyLITTER what they are and where they might be coming OFFENDER BAG HABIT BEAD NORTH-EAST CLEAN-UP from. Armed with this information BCS will be able to
1
3
4
5
+
>
> 3 RETURN TO OFFENDER We are encouraging all our supporters to take action in 2013 to become an active part of the BCS award-winning anti beach litter campaign Return To Offender. The campaign has sent over 2000 items of identifiable marine litter found on UK beaches back to the manufacturers, challenging them to:
With your help this campaign can continue to make a real difference to what we find on our beaches, you’re not only an environmentalist, you’re a consumer, and so these big companies will listen to what you have to say. BCS dirty dozen
Step up the anti-littering message on your products. Look Below are the worst offenders, those companies at using less harmful packaging to ensure products can be whose products we are finding the most on our precious beaches. However, our focus in 2013 will be on broken down naturally without putting wildlife at risk. companies such as Pepsico UK and Bookers Ltd who Promote recycling and/or reuse wherever appropriate. Support have refused to take this issue seriously so far: community beach litter initiatives or anti-litter projects. Since launching in 2006 the Return To Offender campaign Coca-Cola • Pepsico has gone from strength to strength, along the way winning CLOSE MENU Glaxosmithkline/Lucozade the Coast award for Best Blue Green Campaign in 2009. Kraft • Nestlé • Tesco • Mars More recently Haribo have responded directly to the RTO United Biscuits Carlsberg • Unilever campaign challenges, increasing their anti-litter messaging on packaging by replacing the universal Litter Man icon Booker • In Bev/Anhesuer Busch with a far larger anti-littering icon more appropriate for BEACH UNIDENTIFIED BREAK THE BEATING THE BIG their customers. LITTER FLOATING BAG HABIT BEAD NORTH-EAST
1
2
OBJECTS
4
5
+
CLEAN-UP
>
> 4 BREAK THE BAG HABIT The Beach Conservation Society has joined forces with three other leading environmental charities to call for a levy on single-use bags in England, following the success of such levies in Wales and Ireland.
Over the past two years, the number of carrier bags used in England has increased despite repeated Government calls for retailers to reduce the numbers they give out. All of this net growth in the use of such plastic bags came from England, the only home nation not to have a single-use bag levy in place or to be actively seeking to implement one.
The Beach Conservation Society, the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), Keep Britain Tidy and Surfers Against After the first year of such a scheme in Wales, charging Sewage are calling on the Government to reduce litter 5p per bag, the number of single-use bags issued has and waste by requiring retailers to introduce a smallCLOSE levy MENU fallen by between 70% and 96%, as estimated by retailers. on all single-use bags. Together we have launched the In turn, public support for the Welsh bag levy has grown Break the Bag Habit campaign. to 70%. In 2011, businesses in the UK issued plastic bags at a rate When a plastic plastic bag of 254 BEACH a second. A total of eight billion thin-gauge plastic UNIDENTIFIED RETURN TO Ireland introduced BEATING THE bag levy in 2002,BIG LITTER BEAD NORTH-EAST the Irish levy plastic bags made up bags were issued during 2011FLOATING 足a 5.4% increase on theOFFENDER 7.6 use fell by 90%. Before OBJECTS CLEAN-UP 5% of visible litter, afterwards it dropped to 0.32%. billion bags issued in 2010.
1
2
3
5
+
>
> 5 BEATING THE BEAD Microplastics in our beauty products = microplastics in our sea
Until they take notice, it is important that we do not use care products with plastics. You too can help to end the plastic soup in the ocean. Check the list of ingredients on the label. Plastics can appear as: Polyethylene / Polythene (PE), polypropylene (PP) or Polyethylene terephthalate (PET).
It seems unbelievable, but it's true: many personal care products like scrubs and peels now contain plastic particles. So, every time we exfoliate or peel off those dead cells, we may be doing our bodies some good, but we're giving Dr Sue Church, BCS Litter Policy Officer, says: "It's incredible how many everyday products contain micro plastic beads. our seas anything but a make-over. As the products are rinsed off, they go down the drain and that means we are These find their way through our sewers and into our seas where they are easily eaten by all sorts of marine animals. flushing plastic into our seas where it contributes toCLOSE the MENU Help us stop the practice of putting these microplastics in 'plastic soup' problem. products by signing the petition and checking out products at home. This App and website is a great resource for The Beat the Microbead campaign, of which BCS is a member, is asking the manufacturers of these care products those who want to have plastic free products. The micro plastics productsTHE are so small that our sewage to replace all plastic particlesUNIDENTIFIED with environmentally friendly BEACH RETURN TO in these BREAK BIG LITTER FLOATING OFFENDER NORTH-EAST works cannot dealBAG withHABIT them, so if used they are essentially alternatives, such as anise seeds, sand, salt or coconut. OBJECTS CLEAN-UP washed straight out to sea�. These are materials that were used before plastic particles.
1
2
3
4
+
>
> Are there microplastics in your scrub?
Products are divided into the categories Red, Orange and Green:
In October 2013 an international version of the ‘Beat the Microbead’ App was launched, which previously hadCLOSE only MENU been available to Dutch consumers.
1
2
3
The App works by scanning the barcode of products and telling the shopper whether or not the product contains plastic BEACH microbeads. UNIDENTIFIED RETURN TO LITTER
FLOATING OFFENDER OBJECTS Download the App at www.beatthemicrobead.org.
the product contains microbeads the product contains microbeads but the manufacturer has pledged to stop using microbeads in the near future
4
+
BREAK THE BAG HABIT
BIG NORTH-EAST microbeads CLEAN-UP
the product does not contain
>
>
JOIN US FOR THE BIG NORTH-EAST CLEAN-UP More than 11,000 volunteers removed 24,000 pounds of rubbish last year for North-East Coastal Cleanup Day, the largest volunteer day on the planet. Join us on July 6th 2015 to make a massive difference for our environment. The Library will be celebrating Talk-Like-A-Pirate day a few days late with a Moby Dick screening, food and sea shanties after the cleanup. Celebrate your volunteer service at Whitley Ale House with a beer garden and live DJ for the Coastal Cleanup Day after-party.
Whitley Bay Beach
This cleanup will focus on the dunes. Refreshments and lunch will be provided. This cleanup is hosted in partnership with the parish council.
Seaton Sluice
Enjoy a free lunch compliments of Barclays Bank for all clean-up volunteers.
North Blyth Newbiggin By The Sea
1
Cresswell Bay
BEACH LITTER
Previous locations
CLOSE Yoga Trailblazers hosts a freeMENU yoga class on the beach from 8:30-9:30 am before the cleanup. Bring a yoga mat and wear sunscreen for this beginner class. Veggie Grill will also provide food to keep volunteers energized.
2
3
4
5
FLOATING OBJECTS
OFFENDER
BAG HABIT
BEAD
Start early with us and finish at lunchtime. Spend the afternoon strolling along the dunes, with the option of joining a game of Beach Volleyball UNIDENTIFIED RETURN TO BREAK THE BEATING THE
The Beach Conservation Society 26 The Promenade Whitley Bay Newcastle upon Tyne NE26 2RL Connect to our partner websites: http://www.sas.org.uk/ http://www.mcsuk.org/ Call us to volunteer for the big day on 0632-677-478.
>