£1m bag charges to fund beach clean-up
A MILLION pounds from plastic bag charges will be used to support a major clean-up of litter, bottles and cans from Britain’s beaches and rivers.
Some £500,000 will be used by the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), while the other half will be spent cleaning up parks and other green areas.
the money comes from the 5p charge applied to bags sold by Waitrose. the introduction of the charge has cut the number of bags given away at major retailers’ tills by more than 70 per cent.
At the same time, the millions of pounds raised through the charge has been a lifeline for charities and good causes dealing with everything from litter to cancer care and education.
the Daily Mail campaigned for the introduction of the 5p charge under its ‘Banish the Bags’ initiative, supported by readers, anti-litter groups, conservationists and charities. England introduced the charge in October 2015, following the governments in Wales, Scotland and Northern ireland.
the MCS will use the money to organise and support around 1,000 beach and river clean-ups by thousands of volunteers during 2017 and 2018.
Waitrose will donate another £500,000 to projects tackling plastics in the environment.
Lauren Eyles, of the MCS, said: ‘A trip down to the beach should put a smile on your face, but there’s very little to be cheerful about when it comes to the sheer quantity of litter on our beaches. Beach litter has steadily risen over the two decades that MCS volunteers have been recording it on UK beaches.
‘Last year, on average in the UK, 694 items of litter were collected for every 100 metres cleaned. Plastic bottles and carrier bags, nappies, balloons and tiny plastic pieces can be found on almost every beach in the UK – either washed up, blown there or dropped.
‘Our beaches are suffering, and most of the litter found can be traced back to us – the general public. But we can all do something positive to help.’
During the MCS 2016 Great British Beach Clean, 268,384 individual items of litter were collected at 364 events by just under 6,000 volunteers.
For the first time, many of the plastics removed from the beaches and rivers will be sorted and recycled, giving them a second life as new products. the Waitrose Beach and river Clean-up project will kick off during this year’s MCS Great British Beach Clean from September 15 to 18.
Supermarkets and manufacturers are under pressure to cut the use of plastic that simply ends up in the bin and is dumped in landfill.
this month, Waitrose announced that all of its own-label packaging would be widely recyclable, reusable or home compostable by 2025. the retailer’s tor Harris, said: ‘the marine environment is important to all of us so the MCS beach and river cleans were an obvious choice when thinking where to donate some of our plastic carrier bag funds.’
Last week, Coca-Cola said it would double the amount of recycled plastic in its bottles to 50 per cent by 2020, with a deposit and refund scheme.