Pupils take 24 bags of litter from beach
Pupils from an East Durham school enjoyed a day at the beach –but strictly for educational purposes.
For the youngsters from Seaham High School were not sunning themselves, they were looking after the environment.
A group of Year 8 pupils from the school carried out a big litter pick on Acre Beach, which is near the Marina, in Seaham, and were stunned by how much rubbish they got in a short time.
Russell Lax, a staff member at the school, who co-ordinated the event, said the group of mixed ability young people did a great job.
The children wanted to carry out the clean-up operation to take place as part of the recent World Ocean Day.
Mr Lax, along with fellow teacher Tracey Dodds, has been working with the 33 children who are members of the Green Pathways group at the school.
As well as learning aboutpollution,theyhave also been studying plastics in their science lessons.
During the litter pick the young people collected 24 bags of rubbish from the beach in just two hours.
Mr Lax said: “The event went really well and the studentswereveryenthusiastic.”
He said most of the litter was plastics, as well as material, glass and cans.
Collecting such a huge quantity in such a short time emphasised just how much litter is being dropped.
Mr Lax said: “The students enjoyed doing the litter pick and want to do more to help the environment.”
He said many have already taken issues to heart, such as not using paper straws or none at all, instead of plastic straws after watching a video about how much damage they do.
Gary Hanson, 13, pictured left, who collected six bags of rubbish himself, said: “I really enjoyed taking part and was quite surprised by the amount of rubbish we picked up.”