Charity clean highlights beach litter problem

Staff from Living Coasts, Torquay’s coastal zoo, have led a clean-up of one of Torquay’s beaches.

Twenty-one volunteers joined workers from the charity to pick rubbish from Beacon Cove. But the clean has highlighted the scale of Torbay’s beach litter problem.

The haul included over 200 plastic items, including a bucket and a traffic cone, nearly 300 bits of paper, over 400 shards of glass and 170 pieces of metal, 90 of which were bottle caps. The total weight collected was over 31 kilos.

Clare Rugg, from Living Coasts, explained: “Beacon Cove is the beach on our doorstep. Some litter is brought in by the waves but much of it is left by beach users. We think the problem is getting worse. Some of the people who volunteered were horrified by how much rubbish we picked up – and by 10.00 o’clock that night there was glass and plastic on the beach again!”

Clare has held talks with the Council, who clean the beach regularly, to find ways of working together to tackle the problem. Living Coasts staff will be holding another volunteer beach clean in September. For more information go to www.livingcoasts.org.uk or ring 0844 474 3366.