‘The people are great, the places beautiful – but the rubbish is shocking’
A SOUTH Wales man is undertaking a huge challenge by walking 700 miles around Wales’ coastline – picking up rubbish and waste at every beach he stops at.
Geraint John, originally from Maesteg, said he’d been motivated to carry out his epic feat because of his love for Wales and the “absolutely disgusting” state of some of the country’s beauty spots.
The 51-year-old is currently in Llangrannog in Ceredigion on his latest stop-off along the coast, with nothing but a tent, some essential supplies and waste bags to fill as he goes about his journey.
The trip, which is expected to last all summer, started on April 13 in Mumbles, and Geraint has been gradually making his way along the West Wales coast since.
The section east of Swansea, between Port Talbot and the Severn Bridge, simply has too much rubbish for one man to collect, according to Geraint, so now that he has walked through Pembrokeshire and arrived in Ceredigion, his plan is to continue heading north around Anglesey and across to Rhyl.
The aim of the walk is to raise awareness and money that will help clean up Welsh beaches and attempt to rectify a problem which Geraint says is only getting worse.
“I’ve always been into sailing and scuba diving, and last year I cycled six and a half thousand miles around the coast of Britain for charity,” said Geraint, who managed to find some shelter from the rain to talk about his trip.
“But what really stuck in my mind was the amount of rubbish I saw washed up on the coastline, so I set up a not-for-profit company called Coastline Guardians CIC to try to deal with the problem.
“If I can do the Welsh coastline once on foot this summer, the hope is I can raise enough money to do it more often moving forward.
“Some places see so much rubbish, it’s absolutely disgusting, with most of the stuff coming in offshore.
“Some places are so remote that I can fill three or four bags of rubbish but there’s nowhere for me to get rid of it, while other places are not accessible on foot. But of course rubbish doesn’t care where it goes.”
On the beaches that are accessible, Geraint collects bags and bags of waste – plastic, general waste, fishing equipment – and disposes of it in car parks that have designated bins or recycling facilities, after looking to see if he can trace where it has come from.
While he is making the journey alone, he has bumped into friends along the way and others who share his passion for cleaning up the Welsh coastline.
“The more people I meet, the better. There’s no rush in this, I don’t really have an ‘end date’ in mind,” he said. “I’ve been meeting with local people who are doing litterpicks along the way. The people are great and the places are all beautiful.”
Some places are in danger of becoming less beautiful, however, due to the amount of rubbish which has a tendency to pile up in different places, as Geraint explains.
“I spent five days at Worm’s Head in Rhossili. I found a dead cow and filled about 26 bags of rubbish.
“At the moment it’s shocking in places, and it’s a big environmental issue. What you find is, with the smaller beaches, communities do a lot to clean up, but of course every tide brings more rubbish.”
Having set up Coastline Guardians CIC, Geraint’s plan is to regularly clean up Welsh beaches with the help of funds raised from public donations.
“Even through the winter you can still get good days where you can go out and clean up,” he said.
“The plan is to be able to go and carry out big clean-ups five or six times a year around the coastline.
“I’m hoping to raise £50,000 which will help pay for this, including a sailboat and a small inflatable boat which will make places where you can’t get to on foot accessible.
“I want there to be an educational side to this as well. I want to get this into schools because it’s an issue which is only going to get worse, so I’m hoping to work with schools by getting children’s books about the problem published, and work with universities too.
“I can’t rely on grant funding and donations forever so I have plans on how I can continue to do this in the long term. I love Wales and our coastline is absolutely spectacular.”
You can help fund Geraint’s goal to get a cleaner and better Welsh coastline at www.justgiving. com/crowdfunding/coastlinescic