Eco Club – Beach Clean 2018
BEACH CLEAN
The Eco Committee got stuck in straight away this autumn with a beach clean on September 14that West Beach, West Bay. The event took place as part of the Great British Beach Clean organized by the Marine Conservation Society and our results will contribute to a national survey. The eco children from Broadwindsor, Salway Ash and Thorner’s school worked together to clean the beach and this gave the children a great chance to share ideas with their peers.
The beach clean was a really positive event and the children worked with care, purpose and enthusiasm to clean the 100-metre survey site using equipment on loan from the Dorset Waste Partnership. Whilst on first sight, the beach looked clear of rubbish, over two hours the children collected 508 items of litter in total, which weighed nearly 4 kgs. Most of the litter was fragments of plastic items which had accumulated in the tide line. The children found a whole range of recognisable objects including, toothbrushes, Christmas decorations, lego, golf tees and shoes. They found a total of 51 cigarette ends and a lot of fishing line and netting. All of us were surprised by the range and number of the litter items found and together we now plan to write to the Dorset Waste Partnership to campaign for more recycling bins in the West Bay area. Hopefully the beach clean can become an annual event and the children will have the chance to monitor litter levels on our local coast for years to come.