Get Involved with Volunteer Beach Cleans

England’s coast is beautiful and diverse. But nearly all of it is now littered with plastic, glass, fast food packaging and cigarette butts. People’s beach walks are ruined by having to always stop and pick up litter, and it of course harms children, pets, coastal birds and marine creatures.

Also read our post on how to prevent ghost fishing waste.

If volunteering at beach cleans, check tide time and use proper equipment. It’s best to leave children and dogs at home. Read more on keeping dogs safe by the seaside. Don’t walk on sand dunes, to avoid disturbing nests and native wildlife like natterjack toads). 

• The 2 Minute Foundation offers a litter-picking station for councils or volunteers. Just take a bag and litter-picker, then return when you’re done. It can set up fundraisers for councils, business and schools to sponsor one.
• Waterhaul beach clean bag is made in Cornwall from end-of-life spinnaker sails, a durable sailcloth that is designed to be used with their litter-pickers. So you don’t end up with tin canned food on your hands!
• Use with beach litter-picking equipment and knives from a social enterprise collected by volunteers to make into sunglasses (if dropped in the sea, they still break into microplastics). 

The Most Common Forms of Beach Litter

What gives a volunteer beach clean ‘double whammy’ is to create preventive measures, so that once cleaned, the litter doesn’t return. At the sea, this is not so easy. Often beach litter is not due to being dropped by locals, but having washed up on the beach, travelling on tides from elsewhere.

But it’s good to remove it anyway. Local people can help by educating. For instance, using ‘recycled plastic beach towels’ just releases more microplastics.

The most common items you’ll likely to encounter on the beach are:

• Plastic bottles
• Glass litter
• Cigarette butts (use a personal ashtray)
• The tear-off bits on grocery plastic bags
• Plastic tea bags
• Nylon hair bands
• Crisp packets
• Golf balls and tees (launched from ships)
• Swimming costumes, goggles, snorkels
• Fishing line waste
• Footballs, frisbees (never use near seals)

• It’s best to go with an official organisation, as it has trainers and can offer safety gloves and equipment (and will notify councils and landowners).
• Volunteers should report hazardous materials to landowners and councils (who can serve litter abatement orders on private land – it has to remove it on public land, no matter who dropped it).
• Cut up disposable face masks, plastic beer rings, rubber bands and hair bands, before safe disposal, to avoid harming wildlife.
• Report fishing nets and ghost fishing gear to Waterhaul (who can arrange collection nationwide).
• Tangled live creatures should be reported immediately to British Divers Marine Life Rescue (RSPCA and Coastguard can put you through). Don’t approach creatures yourself, you may scare them away. 
• Report fly-tipping and dead animals to your local council.

Volunteer Beach Clean Opportunities

Holly Astle

Surfers Against Sewage has the ambition to recruit 1 million volunteers to each clean 10 miles of beach (or canals or parks) each year. Find a local clean near you, or start one up and get free equipment for up to 30 volunteers (along with guidance and public liability insurance). The kit contains gloves, reusable sacks, a first aid kit and hand sanitiser.

Each clean lasts around 2 hours. You will also receive a owner notification letter to amend yourself, providing details and arranging rubbish collection disposal. Blanket permission has been given by Cornwall Council, so you don’t need to notify.