Clean up the coastline with Marine Conservation Society

The UK’s leading marine charity says it hopes people who love the coast around Northern Ireland will take part in a nationwide beach clean event which includes clean-ups in County Antrim and Derry.

The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) runs regular beach cleans around the UK which this year will culminate in the Great British Beach Clean over the weekend of the 19th-22nd September.

MCS says it hopes to get a record number of people cleaning beaches around the UK during its Great British Beach Clean weekend and is looking for volunteers in Northern Ireland.

Tom Bell, MCS Campaigns Manager, says the event hopes to return many of Britain’s beaches to their halcyon days of the 50’s and 60’s, before we became a throw away society resulting in thousands of pieces of litter, including vast amounts of plastic, along every kilometre of the UK’s coastline.

“Our domestic habits over the last 50 years or so have resulted in dirty beaches. We throw more stuff away than ever. Plastic in the marine environment may take hundreds of years to break down and it washes up or is blown onto beaches in bits from micro pieces to larger chunks.

“We flush stuff down the loo we shouldn’t, and that ends up in our water ways and then our beaches. We want to see people turning out to clean up their favourite or local beach during our Great British Beach Clean weekend – please don’t turn your back out beaches.”

There are beach clean events in Northern Ireland at Ballyholme, Hazelbank, Whiteabbey, Browns Bay, Mill Quarter Bay, Mulough, Newcastle, Castlerock, Magilligan, Portstewart Strand, Loughshore Park, and Millisle Lagoon.

To find out dates and times at individual beaches and to sign up to the Great British Beach Clean in Northern Ireland, register at www.mcsuk.org/greatbritishbeachclean or call 01989 567807.