Surfers Against Sewage Litter-pick Completed at Porthtowan

Clean water campaigners from Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) took their green postbox onto the beach at Porthtowan as part of the Return To Offender campaign and were joined by more than 50 volunteers. In glorious sunshine the volunteers completed a very successful beach clean-up removing just under 200kgs of waste from the beach.

Volunteers were asked to put all identifiable litter in SAS's green postbox to be sent back to the manufacturer with an SAS campaign message. The message calls on the manufacturer to improve their anti littering signage, investigate low impact materials and reduce their packaging. This is part of the ongoing SAS Return to Offender campaign.

During the beach clean volunteers were recordings all the litter they collected as part of a national beach litter survey ‘Beachwatch', organised by the Marine Conservation Society. Huge fishing nets and traffic cones were amongst the larger items we found, with toy soldiers and, ironically, tiny plastic fish amongst the smaller. The irony is fish and sea birds can and do mistake plastics for food often with fatal consequences.

However, as always, Porthtowan's most common items were the mermaid's tears, (tiny plastic pellets used in injection molding) and cotton bud sticks, a sign that too many local people are still disposing of non-flushable items down the toilet instead of bagging and binning them.

SAS would like to thank everyone who gave up their time on such a sunny Saturday, rolled up their sleeves and made a big difference, the beach looked considerable better after our beach clean. We also need to thank Finisterre and Freakfish surf shop who generously donated some fantastic prizes and the Blue Bar who quenched everyone thirst with free coffees!

Andy Cummins, Campaign Officer at SAS, said "These beach clean events are only made successful thanks to the volunteers, so a big thanks to them! After our beach clean Porthtowan really looked a nicer place."

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