On Sunday 18th September, FoSB members and friends met at Shingle Rd Beach entrance to take part in the Great British Beach Clean, a UK wide clean up organised and promoted by the Marine Conservation Society http://www.mcsuk.org/beachwatch/greatbritishbeachclean

As in previous years we also undertook a survey of litter found over a 100mx 60m stretch of beach west of Shingle Road ( results below)

35 volunteers and their families, cleaned the beach from Shingle Road to the Burrells Roundabout and from Shingle Road to the SYC flagpost, removing 22kg of litter from the beach. All photos can be found in our Gallery Great British Beach Clean 2016

Most volunteers commented on the amount of litter collected being much lighter than last year’s 45kg+ though much of what was cleared was smaller and lighter in size and weight.

Lots of families were involved and volunteers came from as far as Guildford and London. Steve Savage also set up his beach awareness display by the boardwalk and this attracted a lot of attention from passers by who then expressed interest in future events and FoSB membership.

The survey area was pretty representative of the beach as a whole, with large amounts of sweet and crisp wrappers,unidentified plastic and polystyrene and pieces of string and cord showing a mix of human borne and sea borne detritus. Our results have now been sent to the MCS to be added to the UK survey Last years results can be seen using this link:-  http://www.mcsuk.org/downloads/gbbc/2016/487-2016%20Beachwatch%20GBBC%20Summary%2016pp%20A5%20WEB%20Spreads.pdf

Thanks to everyone who took part