The title of this post may be a teeny bit misleading. No’ I’ve not been saving lives or squeezing myself into red swimming costumes but I was on a beach … on one of the coldest, windiest May days I can remember.
So, why was I there? I was part of a group participating in The M&S Big Beach Clean Up – One of a number of days arranged in conjunction with the Marine Conservation Society to encourage to help clean up our beaches.
We went to West Kirby Beach on The Wirral. We were told that actually the beach was quite a ‘clean’ beach anyway and it was a lovely spot when we arrived. Even in howling winds! I’m ashamed to say I didn’t even know West Kirby Beach existed even though it is less than an hour away from here. I was invited to take my children but as it was a school/nursery day, I gathered together the troops and got some friends to bring their little ones (I bet they were secretly cursing me when they saw the state of the weather!)
Helpers were armed with bin bags and some grabbers and instructions not to pick up anything remotely dog-poo-like and off we went. There was soon team work involved as the wind meant you couldn’t pick up and hold a bag open at the same time and it was surprising how much we collected. There was due to be a grand weigh in but it didn’t happen (we were too busy munching on our free BBQ supplied by M&S by then) but it was amazing how many bags could be collected off a short patch of seemingly spotless beach. NOTE: If you are thinking of having a late night beach BBQ – take plastic bottles with you and take them home at the end! There was so much glass.
For more information you can go to the Marine Conservation Society’s page Forever Fish – where they have the following information on how much litter has been collected so far…
A huge thank you from MCS and M&S
Thanks to the 6,000 volunteers who took part in our Big Beach Clean-up in May – for helping us to collect a whopping 11,500kg* of litter!
The sun didn’t shine at every beach but this didn’t stop you from filling over 3,200 bin bags of rubbish, including 12,800 wrappers and 2,850 tin cans. Lucky litter pickers even found a set of false teeth and half a sofa in Edinburgh, a carpet in Clacton and a pink thong on Shoreham beach!
Sadly, we didn’t find anything as exciting as a pink thong (thank God!).
To get the kids involved there are plenty of facts, activities and games on the School of Fish resource page.
Hope to see you at next year’s Big Beach Clean Up – I’m so proud that we did it!
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