Huge cuts to the amount of waste dumped on beach
PLASTIC WASTE IS STILL A HUGE PROBLEM
THE scale of litter left on East Yorkshire’s coastline has fallen dramatically in the past year, clean beach campaigners say.
Statistics compiled by a charity which carries out annual beach cleans revealed that 397 pieces of litter per 100 square miles were collected this year along the North East coast, down from 657 last year and 635 the year before that.
The figures mean that the amount of litter dropped on beaches, which poses a hazard to wildlife and can take centuries to biodegrade, has fallen by approximately a third in the past 12 months.
Despite this, campaigners said the vast majority of waste picked from our beaches was plastic.
Most of these, according to the Marine Conservation Society, were small pieces of random plastic or polystyrene smaller than 50cm in size.
Cigarette butts, crisp packets, sweet wrappers and lolly sticks also contributed to the figure, with 55 pieces collected from every 100 square miles along our coast.
Items such as plastic shopping bags and cotton buds meanwhile have dropped dramatically in recent years following Government efforts to phase them out, with the introduction of plastic bag charges and a ban on plastic cotton buds, drinking straws and drinks stirrers.
The Marine Conservation Society said the downward trend was positive, and reflected changing attitudes to waste and single use plastic, but added that more still needed to be done to crack down on the issue.
PPE such as single-use face masks have also become a major issue and were found on nearly a third (32 per cent) of all UK beaches this year, the society also said.
“UK governments’ piecemeal approach to single-use plastics policy just won’t cut it anymore,” said Dr Laura Foster from the charity.
“While we’re seeing a downward trend in litter on beaches, we’re still seeing huge volumes of plastic washing up on our shores.
“A shocking 75 per cent of all the litter we collected from UK beaches this year was made of plastic or polystyrene, so it’s clear what we need to focus our attention on.
“Comprehensive and ambitious single-use plastics policies, which reduce the manufacture and sale of items is the quickest way of phasing out plastic from our environment.”