FIGHTING THE TIDE
TRASH FREE TRAILS FOUNDER DOM FERRIS SAYS GOODBYE TO THE CORNISH COAST WITH A FINAL BIKE RIDE AND BEACH CLEAN
Trash Free Trails founder Dom Ferris explains the thinking behind this great initiative as he says farewell to the Cornish coast with a final ride turned beach clean.
ONE OF THE BIGGEST SWELLS I’VE SEEN IN YEARS IS PUMMELING BAWDEN ROCKS, a mile off the coast of St Agnes in Cornwall. Waves are bursting over the tallest of the two, known as the Cow (the other being the Calf) and stretching up 80ft – and the spray is being blown far and wide by winds of over 50mph. It’s an incredible natural spectacle, one for which I’ve had a front row seat (and desk) for the past 11 years, since I began work at Surfers Against Sewage (SAS). Now, having turned my pollution-fighting focus inland, with Trash Free Trails (TFT), I’m about to say goodbye to it – and the churning sea is a perfect metaphor for how I’m feeling about that. I’ve a great attachment to this coastline and its people, and I’ll be sorry to leave its stunning beaches and the sweeping trails connecting them behind. But at least I’ve said farewell in a suitable fashion, with one final clifftop bike ride and beach clean.
Clean me up before you go-go
The mission was simple. Ace photographer and Trash Free Trails A-TEAMer Ian Lean and I would ride a 15-mile section of coast path to a beach only accessible by foot, bike or horse. We’d record, remove and recycle as much single-use pollution (aka litter) as we could carry along the way, with Ian documenting as we went.
Setting off, we rolled happily down sun-drenched Cornish lanes until we got to the coast path. Skirting the edges of a sea of rotting cauliflower, we were suddenly confronted by the full majesty of the Atlantic Ocean from atop towering, red-walled cliffs. One of the best things about MTB-powered clean-ups is that you get to have fun riding your bike as well as doing your bit for the environment – which is exactly what we did as we whipped along a three-mile section of clifftop singletrack with the wind at our tails.
We rolled down to a viewpoint to see whether the binraiding shitehawks (aka seagulls) had been up to no good again and snagged a few stray pieces of litter, then paused to stare enviously at the waves rolling past us (we were sacrificing a cracking day’s surfing!). It wasn’t long before we were interrupted by the rumbling of our stomachs, though, which could mean only one thing – time for a pasty, the ultimate beach/trail-cleaning fuel! Realising that we’d been dawdling in classic Cornish style, enjoying the rare spring sunshine, and that we had two miles of dunes to get through before we could fill our bellies, we rolled down to the beach – the place where it all began.
The Big Bang
In the spring of 2013, on this very patch of sand, I stood in the sun in front of a couple of pop-up gazebos, trying to persuade the hundreds of beachgoers to help us clean it up. Despite offering a free Surfers Against Sewage T-shirt, burger and glass of wine, fewer than 20 people joined in. Almost exactly 12 months later, 250 people turned up at the same spot, no persuasion necessary. It was even threatening to rain. What had changed? For starters, it was a perfect demonstration that perseverance pays off. I was disappointed when only 20 people took part the first time, but decided to focus on being grateful to them, not to sulk about those who hadn’t helped. This positive approach, adopted with SAS, was to become a core value of Trash Free Trails.
At the same time, something was happening on a global scale – an explosion in awareness and action on ocean plastic
WE WERE SUDDENLY CONFRONTED BY THE FULL MAJESTY OF THE ATLANTIC OCEAN FROM ATOP TOWERING, RED-WALLED CLIFFS
SOME OF THE SCENES OF HUMAN-MADE DEVASTATION THAT I’VE SEEN HERE IN THE PAST 11 YEARS HAVE BEEN OVERWHELMING
pollution. This would go on to peak in 2018, when David Attenborough narrated the grieving of a mother blue whale in Blue Planet II, but it was in 2014, when I stood up to welcome the 250 people who’d joined us on this beautiful beach, that I began to sense something incredible was brewing. In 2009, just 1,000 volunteers joined in with SAS’s UK beach cleans. By 2019, that had risen to 90,564 people nationwide removing 128 tons of plastic pollution at 2,210 clean-ups. Thankfully, this wave shows no sign of abating.
That same year, 2014, was when I first began to think that similar action was needed inland. While the future was bright at work, my father was very ill. Throughout 2014 and 2015, I began to make the long drive to Mid Wales more and more often, to support my wonderful sister with the care of this selfdestructingly contrary, marvellous man. It was a dark time, culminating with my dad’s death in December 2015, aged 65. But every time I went home, I took my bike with me. And it was on those sanity-saving rides with childhood friends that Trash Free Trails was born. Despite seeing ever-increasing amounts of litter on our rides, there was none of the awareness and action on single-use pollution that I was involved with back in Cornwall. By late 2015, the silence on this issue had become deafening, and I realised I had to do something about it.
We are the tide
Back to our coastal ride, and, safe in the (sad) knowledge that there’d be more than enough plastic pollution to occupy us as we approached the point on the other side of the bay, I led Ian down to the dunes and focused on enjoying the trip down memory lane. Through a combination of bathymetric [ocean depth], geological and meteorological factors, flotsam and jetsam gathers here in huge amounts, particularly after storms. And, to use dramatic terms, if the beach itself is the site of a plastic pollution explosion, then the point at the northern end is ground zero.
Some of the scenes of human-made devastation that I’ve seen here in the past 11 years have been overwhelming. I’ve led beach cleans that have removed somewhere in the region of 10 tons of plastic pollution from this stunning place. Yet, however much we bagged up, each new tide brought a fresh wave of waste from across the globe. Sadly, that was still the case on this ride, when Ian and I were confronted with snowdrifts of plastic stretching as far as the eye could see. There was only so much that two men with a few bin bags could do, but we pitched in regardless.
It was on this spot in 2016 that I had the revelation that spurred me to take TFT from an idea in my head to a grassroots movement. While the sheer volume of sea pollution – up to 12.5 million tons of plastic escapes into the world’s oceans each year – and the way it floats around makes it an impossible task to find all the sources and stem the flow, it occurred to me that we don’t have this problem on our trails. With the annoying exception of airborne litter (such as the dreaded birthday helium balloon), the single-use pollution we find has been discarded by someone who’s set foot on that exact spot. In other words, we are the tide. That meant we didn’t have to resign ourselves to just clearing up the mess – if we could only figure out how to connect with those who were responsible for it, we stood a real chance of ridding our wild places of single-use pollution. So in January 2017, I set up a Trash Free Trails Instagram account, and the rest is history.
Time to go
Back on the beach, the sun was getting a little low, so Ian and I loaded ourselves up like marine litter mules, stuffed a pasty down our gullets and set off back through the dunes, towards one of the most beautiful sunsets of the year so far. It was a fitting end to my time in Cornwall, as I prepare to move to North Wales, to be in more of a mountain biking heartland and to start work on a master’s degree research project at Bangor University. This will form TFT’s State of Our Trails Report, helping to guide the organisation’s work in the years to come. My gratitude to this beautiful place goes hand in hand with the thanks I owe to the thousands of people who’ve supported Surfers For Sewage and Trash Free Trails, in the process helping me to find a sense of purpose that had been missing for a long time. The biggest high-five is saved for the #TRASHMOB – the volunteers that TFT wouldn’t exist without. I can’t wait to see what we can achieve together in the next 11 years!
THE SINGLE-USE POLLUTION WE FIND ON THE TRAILS HAS BEEN DISCARDED BY SOMEONE WHO’S SET FOOT ON THAT EXACT SPOT. WE ARE THE TIDE