Join in in Scotland’s biggest beach clean

The UK’s leading marine charity, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), is looking for volunteers to clean up Scotland’s beaches this September 20 to 23 during its 2019 Great British Beach Clean event.

Although there are currently no beach cleans scheduled in Orkney, the charity are encouraging folks to get in touch and organise there own.

Last year, 2,913 volunteers took part, removing an incredible 75,807 individual items of litter, weighing 2,503kg, at 135 beach cleans along 15,680 metres of surveyed coastline.

The Great British Beach Clean is not just a beach cleaning event, however. Volunteer cleaners become citizen scientists, as they also record the litter they find along a designated 100m stretch of every beach that’s cleaned, and it’s this aspect that has helped MCS change policy and behaviours over the last 25 years.

“Now more than ever is the time to turn awareness into action,” says Catherine Gemmell, MCS Scotland conservation officer. 

“Everybody is talking about marine litter — you see it on the TV, hear it on the radio and read it in the papers and across social media. We want people to take that awareness and turn it into action by taking part in the biggest beach litter survey and clean up in Scotland! Only by combining awareness with action and data can we make sure that industry and government put in place the urgent measures needed to stop this plastic tide for good.”

The 5p carrier bag charge, a ban on microbeads in wash-off products, consultations on a plastic tax, commitments to deposit return schemes, a ban on plastic stemmed cotton buds in Scotland and the banning of lantern and balloon releases — have all come about following compelling evidence gathered over decades by volunteers at MCS beach cleans. 

Cleaning and surveying a beach only takes a couple of hours at most. Each beach has a coordinator, who explains how to fill in a simple data form, and then it’s just a case of grabbing a litter picker and a bin bag and filling it up with rubbish.

“Beach litter is a serious environmental problem,” says Lizzie Prior, MCS Beachwatch Officer.

“But the solution is in our hands. We want the 26th Great British Beach Clean weekend to be the biggest ever. The BBC’s Blue Planet II and subsequent programmes have given the UK public a real understanding of the pollution crisis facing our oceans and now people want to make a difference. The more volunteers we have, the better it’ll be for our seas.”

To get involved, call 01989 566017 and find out how you can organise your own.