East Suffolk Council
Beachwatch
Beachwatch, or “Great British Beach Clean”, is the annual survey of marine litter affecting the coastline of Britain conducted by teams of volunteers who survey and categorise the marine litter they find on their adopted 100 metres of beach, with all of the data being collated by the Marine Conservation Society to help them understand the current situation with marine litter and apply pressure in an informed way where it is needed to influence positive change.
For example, the 2020 ban on the supply of single use plastic cotton buds, stirrers, and straws was secured thanks to evidence like this, whilst since the 5p charge on single use plastic carrier bags was introduced, the MCS report a 55% decrease in the numbers of these being found on the UK’s beaches.
The shoreline is a zone of flux, onto which litter may be both washed up from the sea (potentially having entered the sea from anywhere), and washed onto from inland – but it all entered the marine environment due to human activity in the first place. By removing litter from our beaches, we are preventing it from entering (or returning to) the sea. Eunomia’s report Plastics in the Marine Environment indicates that the coast is the marine environment with the highest concentration of plastic pollution worldwide, with a global average concentration of plastic litter on the world’s beaches of 2,000 kg/km2.
To support this initiative, the Greenprint Forum organises at least one Beachwatch survey of the marine litter found on a beach in east Suffolk every year since 2018 except 2020. You can read the reports of our Beachwatch activities from 2019 onwards via our page on past Greenprint Forum events.