17 bags of rubbish found on Kaats Strand beach

A rotten carpet, spent vapes, plastic bottles, cans and even a football. Those were among the items that volunteers from the Slaney Branch of Inland Waterways Association of Ireland (IWAI) pulled from Kaats Strand beach at Crosstown on a recent beach clean-up.

With its entrance just beside Crosstown Cemetery, Kaats Strand is popular with walkers and is used by fishermen who keep their boats there and who collect crabs to use as bait.

Unfortunately, it has also become a place where litter collects.

Careless visitors take their share of the responsibility, but the majority of litter on Kaats Strand is washed in by the tide or deposited by the River Slaney.

On the first day, a IWAI volunteer was joined by a local householder in collecting 4 bags of litter. When they returned with more volunteers and climbed down to Crosstown Beach on the town side a “horrible sight” greeted them.

“This inaccessible beach had not been tidied for years and most of the plastic waste there was so brittle it fractured as it was being picked up,” they said.

“There was so much litter that within an hour, the group had collected a further 12 bags comprising glass bottles, cans, plastic bottles and a new scourge, spent vapes.”

In all, the Slaney Branch collected 17 bags of litter, lots of timber and “a large rotten carpet” and managed to leave the two beaches in a presentable state for walkers going forward.

The group wished to thank Wexford County Council for their support in supply bags, gloves and pickers for the team and for collecting and disposing of all the litter.