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Join Us

Things To Care About Beach Litter Unidentified Floating Object

Return To Offender

Beating the Bead

Break The Bag Habit

y t ie c o S n io t a v r e s n o C h c a The Be

Beach litter is at the highest level since records began. It’s swamping our oceans and is washing up on beaches. It kills wildlife and looks disgusting. It ís a hazard to our health and costs millions to clear up.

There are nearly 2,000 items of rubbish for every kilometre on a beach. Marine wildlife gets entangled in litter and accidentally ingests it. Turtles mistake plastic

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Beach Litter

bags for jellyfish and the bags block their stomachs, often leading to death from starvation. Seabirds mistake floating plastic litter for food, and over 90% of fulmars found dead around the North Sea have plastic in their stomachs.

Plastic never biodegrades. It just breaks down into small pieces.

Microplastic particles are now found inside filter feeding animals and amongst sand grains on our beaches.

Beach litter is made up of discarded objects that do not occur naturally in the marine and coastal environment. Alarmingly, over the past 15 years the amount of marine litter washing up on UK beaches has almost doubled.

(*BCS Beachaware Survey 2012) When in the sea, plastics can also adsorb 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.

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.

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Sources of marine litter*:

The Unidentified Floating Object (UFO) campaign calls on the public to help identify

40.4% from the public

persistent, unidentified marine litter from

4.5% Sewage related Debris

our beaches and report their own UFOs,

13.9% fishing litter 0.7% fly tipping

in the hope that BCS can trace the source of the litter and hold the polluters to account! The BCS team have already captured

3.9% shipping

two types of mysterious UFO and are call-

0.2% medical waste

ing on our supporters to help identify what

2 36.3% non-sourced

Unidentified Floating Object

they are and where they might be coming from. Armed with this information BCS will be able to trace the polluter and work with them to prevent these UFO invading our beaches in future. BCS are also calling on beach users all over the UK to be vigilant for regular alien landings when on their local beaches!

The campaigns team have been working hard on identifying both of our current objects and has recently discovered the name and source of the blue foam balls washing up nationwide. These are Taprogge balls, 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.

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We are encouraging all our supporters to take action in 2013 to become an active part of the BCS award-winning anti beach littercampaign 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: -Step up the anti-littering message on your products.

-Look at using less harmful packaging to ensure products can be broken down naturally without putting wildlife at risk.

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-Promote recycling and/or reuse wherever appropriate.

-Support community beach litter initiatives or anti-litter projects.

With your help this campaign can continue to make a real difference to what we find on our beaches, youíre not only an environmentalist, youíre a consumer, and so these big companies will listen to what you have to say.

Below are the worst offenders, those companies whose products we are finding the most on our precious beaches. However, our focus in 2013 will be on companies such as Pepsico UK and Bookers Ltd who have refused to take this issue seriously so far.

Coca-Cola Pepsico Glaxosmithkline Lucozade Kraft NestlÈ Tesco Mars United Biscuits Carlsberg Unilever Booker In Bev/Anhesuer Busch

Return To Offender 4

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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.

The Beach Conservation Society, the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), Keep Britain Tidy and Surfers Against Sewage are calling on the Government to reduce litter and waste by requiring retailers to introduce a small levy on all single-use bags. Together we have launched the Break the Bag Habit campaign.

When Ireland introduced a plastic bag levy in 2002, plastic bag use fell by 90%. Before the Irish levy plastic bags made up 5% of visible litter, afterwards it dropped to 0.32%.

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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 our seas anything but a make-over. As the products are rinsed off, they go down the drain and that means we are flushing plastic into our seas where it contributes to the ‘plastic soup’ problem.

The Beat the Microbead campaign,

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of which BCS is a member, is asking the manufacturers of these care products to replace all plastic particles with environmentally friendly alternatives, such as anise seeds, sand, salt or coconut. These are materials that were used before plastic particles.

In October 2013 an international version of the Beat the Microbeadí App was launched.

The App works by scanning the barcode of products and telling the shopper whether or not the product contains plastic microbeads. Products are divided into the categories Red, Orange and Green.

Red: the product contains microbeads; Orange: the product contains microbeads but the manufacturer has pledged to stop using microbeads in the future; Green, the product does not contain microbeads.

Download the App at www.beatthemicrobead.org

Beating the Bead 6

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 September 6th 2014 to make a massive difference for our environment.

North Blyth - Enjoy a free lunch compliments of Barclays Bank for all clean-up volunteers.

Newbiggin By The Sea - Yoga Trailblazers hosts a free 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.

Marsden Grotto - By helping clean this

historic site, you’ll be entered into a raffle for a custom surfboard. Meet at the restaurant at the base of the cliff at 9.00am.

South Shields Pier - If you are SCUBA dive certified, this is the site for you. Arrive for the dive at 8am. Prizes will be awarded for the most bizarre items found after the clean-up. Shields Dive Services will provide free air fill and half price gear rentals for SCUBA dive volunteers.

Tynemouth Long Sands. Start the Day with a free yoga class and peace circle with Naam Yoga at 8:30am. After you help cleaning the beach, you can enjoy a free stand-up paddleboard clinic with Michelob Light. Participants get a free admission to the Blue Reef Aquarium.

Seaton Sluice - This cleanup will focus on the dunes. Refreshments and lunch will be provided. This cleanup is hosted in partnership with the parish council.

Cullercoats Pier - Bring your recyclables to and you’ll be entered to win exciting Tetleys Tea raffle prizes this Coastal Cleanup Day. After the clean-up, join us at Geordie Maryís Pizza to win a stand-up paddle board at 3pm.

Whitley Bay Beach - 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.

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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.

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