Volunteers’ handiwork reaps dividends as Banna glistens for major tag-rugby event

BANNA was looking its absolute finest for the arrival of hundreds of tag rugby players on Saturday thanks to the hard-working efforts of a group of environmentally-minded locals – who had just cleaned the beach of litter minutes before the mass influx.

Armed with pickers, blue bags and high visibility vests, they made their way up and down the scenic coast, keeping their sharp eyes peeled for any stray pieces of rubbish that might be hiding. The operation was organised by members of the Banna Coast Care initiative as one of four clean-ups every year that, unfortunately, never fail to produce mountains of waste. Their work comes amid global warnings on the urgency of plastic waste at sea - it is estimated the oceans will soon host one ton of plastics for every three tons of fish. So thank God for volunteers like the Coast Cleaners.

“We’re absolutely delighted with the turn out; we usually have a clean-up such as this along the beach around three or four times a year and we’re always shocked at how much waste and rubbish we find,” said Rachel Geary, speaking on Saturday morning.

“It’s only when you go looking for it that you realise how much waste there actually is, there’s a lot of marine waste usually but you’d find a lot of human rubbish aswell; we’ve found a broken toilet seat, bottles, plastic bags, old life buoys, food wrappers, cans, everything really,” she finished.

Banna Clean Coasts volunteers who gave up their usual Saturday morning routine to scour the beautiful strand for litter, pictured with the haul of plastics and other waste materials they collected from the sand and dunes.

Photos by Domnick Walsh Summer might be over but Banna was busier than ever as hundreds descended on the famous strand for the annual Irish Tag Rugby event there - one of two major events in the year for the Heineken-sponsored organisation.