DON'T MESS IT UP!
Our plea to all those who love Sunderland’s beautiful parks and seafront, as volunteers left to clean up shocking amounts of litter ...
A life-long Seaburn resident has spoken of his shock and disgust after used condoms, alcohol bottles and cannabis were found in rubbish dumped near the seafront.
Retired senior police officer Michael Hartnack spotted the piles of waste strewn in the field between Seaburn and South Bents fields on Tuesday night .
Mr Hartnack, 58, has described the scene as an “absolute disgusting mess” and said “it was a lot worse” than anything he had seen before.
It comes after warm weather and relaxed Covid rules attracted people to the coast.
He said: "It was an absolute and utter tip.
"I was just shocked and totally disgusted.”
After collecting some of the rubbish, Mr Hartnack returned with other residents early yesterday morning to pick up the rest.
It took the group two hours to collect the waste left at the fields, and one of the volunteers got cut on the debris.
Mr Hartnack said: “I could’ve wept this morning when I saw the full extent of the rubbish.
"One of the volunteers got cut this morning and will possibly have to get a tetanus injection.”
He has said the majority of the waste was left behind by young people in their teens and urged parents to be more aware of their children’s whereabouts:
“My appeal would be to parents. Where are your children? What are they up to? When are people going to start take responsibility for their own actions?”
Mr Hartnack added: "During the day yesterday there was some really responsible groups of adults that turned up with families and that was nice to see.
"They all moved off probably by six o’clock and from six o’clock onwards there was only groups of young people drinking and causing noise, and havoc and mess.”
"What I’m going to do tonight is give each of the groups I see black bin bags and ask them nicely, decently, to fill those bin bags and to discard their rubbish by the bins over by the skateboard park. Whether that makes any difference or not, I don’t know.”
In a separate litter pick yesterday, members of swimming group Wild Sea Women collected waste left by visitors at Seaburn promenade.