International Beach Clean up & PADI Project AWARE

International Beach Clean Up & PADI Project AWARE 2011

A few volunteers headed to the west coast to Blackpool's south beach for this annual event. Just seven of us enjoyed the autumn sunshine, doing our little bit for enviroment. We collected litter just along a short stretch of the high tide line. Five bags were collected just in this short space. We did evaluate that in just over 100m of beach, we estimated over 5000 plastic bottle tops alone!!!!

Great day out (even if it was a little rainy) , just goes to show - disposable bottles are a real problem environmentally for so many reasons (plastic uses a LOT of oil, it doesn't biodegrade for thousands of years, the liquid in the bottles usually travels thousands of miles before you drink it) - essentially if everyone brought a drink from home in a reusable drinks bottle, it would be a big step forward (especially given we have such good water where we live).

Thanks for Pappa for organising everything again. Team Jordan were very smiley and tired by bedtime.

The only one in the village I think mate!

Even with the best of my CSI skills I can't read the gaming name on this message.

I have contacted a couple of belfast newspapers to see if we can get a lead.



" My name is Ross McKnight and I live in belfast and im 10. If u have xbox my gamertag is F??? Wet Waf??e ???

this message was sent on 18/7/11"

i reckon he's a left hander!

I may have mentioned but I wrote to Coca-Cola after being appalled at the number of plastic bottles we found on the beach. I figured I ought at least to be a flea in their ear. The main thrust of my letter being that the plastic they use doesn't break down for 1000's of years and therefore it is an unsuitable material to continue to use.

I didn't expect them to change their business on my account, but I am still pretty appalled by their "stock" response which has ignored virtually everything in my letter.

They do however print a recycle logo on most of their packaging though, so the sea will be glad of that (and the coca cola shareholders too no doubt).

All you can really do is choose what you buy I guess - and avoid their products and anything in a plastic bottle and when you DO have to use a plastic bottle, make sure it is recycled.