The first MCS Celebration event for Beachwatch Organisers happened on Zoom on Monday 28th April, hosted by Claire Trotman,Beachwatch Officer. This was essentially a “thank you” from National MCS to all the people around the country who organise beach cleans/ cleans around estuaries etc. It was good to put faces to names and to see the enthusiasm which the staff at National MCS have for their work. Beachwatch is 30 years old and is a great example of Citizen Science.
The speakers emphasised the value of the data collected through our beach cleans and surveys which is used to inform campaigning for changes in legislation. Here is how it works:
The data is analysed by Greg Wannell, MCS data analyst.
Reports are created which are used for briefings to politicians from our parliaments (not Tynwald).
Government launches a consultation and uses the data to demonstrate the need for change and new legislation.
Examples of changes which have been influenced by MCS data include:
Removal of plastic from wet wipes (effective from June this year I believe)
Charge for plastic bags which has resulted in a huge reduction in use.
Deposit return scheme for bottles .
Ban on disposable vapes -from 1st June this year.
Feedback to government is also very important when these changes make a positive difference. This can include inviting MP’s and local councillors to take part in a beach cleans.
Some information from last year as follows:
1,200 surveys sent in between January and December last year.
17,000 kg litter removed by our cleans.
Evidence that plastic litter has unfortunately increased.
The Celebration Event included a very enjoyable quiz and some of the answers were interesting, for examples:
It is estimated that individual adults each generate approximately 99kg plastic waste each year in the UK. (This underlines the importance of recycling)
It is estimated that there are more micro-plastics in the ocean than stars in our galaxy.
70% our our oxygen is produced by marine plants.
In the UK the most items of litter collected by beach cleans are in the form of food wrappers.
The Great British Beach Clean will take place this year between 19th and 28th September. The date for ours will be on the website and in our newsletters. Please join us!
Beach Clean at Half Moon Bay, Heysham on 8th March 2025, report by Kathy MacAdam.
Many thanks to everyone who joined us on a lovely March morning on the beach at Half Moon Bay. There were no obvious signs of the oil spillage from a couple of weeks ago and the beach was exceptionally clean. I think we have local litter-picking groups to thank for that.
Above: The materials collected are dominated by plastics, followed by sanitary waste.
As usual, we split into two groups to clean and survey approximately 100 metres on each side of the steps. The group which cleaned/surveyed the left side (HMB) collected 0.55kg. 39.58% of this was plastic pieces and averaged 48 items of all litter types per 100 metres.
The group for the right side (HMB2) collected 1.12kg of which, 80.91% was plastics. The average of all litter types was 309 items per 100 metres.
Above: It was not possible to work out where many of the bits of rubbish we found came from, but the largest identifiable segment came from members of the public dropping sweet wrappers and similar casual littering.
As the small plastic pieces are so dangerous for marine life, birds etc the two groups did a good job that morning.
I hope you can join us again for the next clean and survey which will be on July 9th at 7.00 pm
We held our annual GBBC at Half Moon Bay, Heysham as usual on the 22nd September. We had a great turn out of volunteers and many thanks to everyone who came.
Over the last few years, we have found the beach quite clean and volumes of litter have been low. This time, the beach was exceptionally clean and we cleaned away in total 0.9 kg. (0.4kg & 0.5kg from the two surveyed areas. The weight was greatly enhanced by bagged dog-poo!
As always, the greatest proportion of litter was in the form of plastic bits. Although these may seem innocuous, these little bits can be a real danger to marine life and birds. So good work from our volunteers in getting these things off the beach.
Weather-wise we were treated kindly and it was an enjoyable morning. We hope to see people again on the next beach clean on 7th December.
Kathy MacAdam
Posted: September 26th, 2024
Posted in Beach Clean
Saturday 21st September between 1 pm to 3 pm at Morecambe Beach.
Channel 5 are following The Raford Family as they clean a section of their local beach. The beach clean will be carried out by all the family and as many people can join as they like. The footage used will be incorporated into the Channel 5 Documentary “22 Kids and Counting”
Thank you to Kathy for organising, and everyone who managed to come along on Wednesday evening – thankfully the weather stayed dry for us! We collected about five kg of (mostly plastic) waste, with rather more sewage related rubbish (including wet wipes) than usual, following the heavy rains at the weekend. A summary of the finds is available in the pie-chart below, and the full report has gone on to national MCS for processing.
Above: Pie chart of litter collected 3rd July 2024. One of the more interesting finds was this discarded boat’s fender (below). It was found slightly outside our survey area, so whilst we removed it from the beach, it does not count as part of the weight of litter reported above.
The fender must have been beached on the last tide, as the attached goose barnacles were still fresh. The barnacles (Lepas anatifera) are not a local species, requiring warm tropical or sub-tropical waters to breed. The adults, however, can survive attached to flotsam, and drift with ocean currents for long periods, and it has consequently been recorded as far North as Svalbard! Here the drifting assemblage has ended up including discarded fishing line, which can be seen in the background (blue filament) of the image below.
Above: Detail of one of the goose barnacles Lepas anatifera – the distincitve jointed legs are visible. In life these form a basket that the animal sweeps through the water to catch small zooplankton that the animal feeds on.
Thanks to Kathy MacAdam for organising the beach clean, and Mark Woombs for spotting the find, and identifying the barnacles!
Thanks to everybody who came along on the 23rd September for the Beach Clean at Half Moon Bay, part of the National MCS Great British Beach Clean 2023. In common with recent events, both survey areas on the beach were exceptionally clean.
Above: Beach clean volunteers from the Half Moon Bay 2 survey area, September 2023.
We collected the least amount of litter that we’ve found on recent cleans. Even the number of plastic fragments was down from a few hundred (usually) to 51. However, this may rise when Becca’s data is added from HMB 2. The overall weight from the surveyed areas was 1.62 kg. A group also cleaned beyond the survey areas and they collected a further 3kg, and many bottles from the seating area on the fore-shore.
Above: Some of the team from Half Moon Bay survey area 1.
Our next beach clean date will be early December (not yet agreed)
Kathy MacAdam, 30th September 2023.
Posted: September 30th, 2023
Posted in Beach Clean
Two of our quarterly beach cleans/surveys took place on April 24th and June 15th with 12 volunteers each, so thank you again to those who took part. The June one was particularly enjoyable with the warm, late sun. A great way to spend an evening.
As we have found in beach cleans over the last few years, Half Moon Bay continues to be cleaner than in the past. The litter we find is mainly in the form of small, plastic pieces which often is found in the strand line seaweed. We don’t take away heavy bags filled with rubbish but, we are taking away the dangerous fragments of plastic which can be so toxic to marine life. Define worth the effort!
You can view our survey data on the website which includes pie charts so you can see the results of our survey data. They provide a colourful reference and it’s a visual way to see the percentages of litter collected.
The next beach clean at Half Moon Bay will be the annual national Great British Beach Clean which takes place between the 16th and the 26th September 2022.
We will meet on Saturday 24th September at 3:00 pm. Please register on the National MCS website in the usual way.
Many thanks to all of you who took part in our beach clean on December 12th. On each side of the beach we took 3.5 kg rubbish, although the weight isn’t always the important part. We removed over 300 pieces of plastic of various sizes. This is so important for the protection of marine life and birds. Other items included 55 cotton bud sticks and several other sanitary items including a PPE mask. This is more than usual and may have something to do with the recent storms. I will put the full surveys on the MCS database.
Whatever we remove helps protect wildlife and make the beaches more pleasant to use, so thanks again and hope to see you on another beach clean.
A big thanks to everyone who turned out on Sunday for the MCS Great British Beach Clean at Half Moon Bay, Heysham. Despite the downpour just before the event we had a good turn out – and the weather turned warm and sunny! Again the beach was pretty clean, allowing us to clean the entire length of the beach down to the high tide mark, collecting only 3.2kg of litter. This did, however, included some sanitary waste – wet-wipes, panty liners, ear cleaners and dog poo, so there is still room for improvement! National MCS will collect all of the data and publish it on their website.
Our next beach clean will be in early December, but we have a short set of winter talks planned starting before then, in November. If you would like to keep up to date with activities, please sign up for our Newsletter:
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