Western Morning News (Saturday)
Award for clearing beach of plastics
Volunteers from Rame Peninsula Beach Care have been awarded a prestigious award for their environmental work.
The group earned the Ministry of Defence’s Sanctuary Magazine Environmental Project Award for cleaning microplastics and raising awareness about plastic pollution at Tregantle beach, which is owned by the MoD.
Claire Wallerstein, founder of the group, which is based on the Rame peninsula in South East Cornwall, went to London with group member Rob Arnold to collect the award.
“We were presented with the award by Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Tobias Ellwood,” she said. “We feel very proud and grateful to be recognised for all the hard work – not just on the part of Rob and myself, but also the scores of all you fantastic volunteers who have selflessly given up your time to come and sweep the beach with us to help remove this hazardous pollutant.
“Thanks also to the MoD for their support under the umbrella of the Tregantle Conservation Group for allowing us access to the beach to use Rob’s microplastics separation machine.
“So far, we have removed well over 10 million pre-production plastic pellets from the 100-metre stretch of beach at the bottom of the track, along with hundreds of thousands of pieces of smashed up microplastics.”