Beach Clean ~ Marine protection.
When I first came here to the fishing town I was shocked, deeply saddened and really angry at the state of one of the beaches. So much so that the second day I was here before I had even moved my belongings into my home I went down to the beach equipped with rubber gloves and cleared up two black bin bags of rubbish within about 50 square metre's of the stretch. There were all sorts of undesirable and nasty objects to be found there, which were not only dangerous and a health hazard to humans and animals but also lethal for our marine life. I actually feel physical pain and much distress when I see this disrespect of mother nature, people, animals and our planet. To keep my own energy right I stand and do grounding meditation then extend light and healing out to the seas and environment. But further action was also required.
So I called environmental health and spoke with the apathetic man on the other end of the phone, after the hour long conversation (or maybe it just felt like that) in which I felt there was at least some sort of conscious breakthrough, I did think we may have be getting somewhere despite the distinct lack of conscientiousness this man's language portrayed. So I politely persisted with highlighting the many points which would make a difference and perhaps offer some sorts of solutions to these problems. However even after the first two obstacles were somewhat overcome, I was still met with a general bureaucratic brick wall, and that type of frustrating despondency that 'tries' to swipe the tools out of the hands of those who tend to chip away at 'that there brick wall.' Thereafter I left it with him, in the hope that he would do what he said he would do with his manager, who consequently always seemed to be conveniently unavailable, until I had to finally inconvenience him too!
I still needed to turn to the marine protection society to see if they could help in some way. They do sometimes help communities to do beach clean ups, so I thought, eureka thankfully I will not have to do the whole stretch of beach by myself, while the EPA say it's out of their hands and the environmental health go through all their red tape and other bits and bobs, which might take a hundred years or more, judging by the general 'lack of' until you just end up wondering what in reality the 'ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY' and 'ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH' really stands for in the first place.
Anyways the MCS were very helpful and also astounded by my photos of all the rubbish, so they said they would get someone else to get back to me and sort something out. Several emails later and many months I waited....
I emailed them again on 03/04/18 ~ They apologised and said they had actually passed the information on to the person who deals with it. So the update on this is we have a community beach clean in place four times a year!!! Yay perseverance pays off in the end!!!
The beach clean on Sunday was attended by 22 people which is a great contribution.
Below is just a tiny amount of the rubbish found, of which much of it is not only hazardous to animals children, but is deadly to our marine life. I've spared you the photos of the many used sanitary towels, wipes, full dog poo bags, and condoms, and 100's of other undesirable objects. You know what's strange, I have never seen this type of mess on any beaches I've visited abroad.
Here is the form the MCS gives us to get an idea of what is in the first 100 metres of our patch, so they can keep a track of things and raise awareness. Ten of us filled in our first 10 metres worth, so we could give them this info. Here is my form with the types of things I found within approx the first ten minutes of being there.
Here are the 24 bags of rubbish, old railings, bike handle bars, broken scooters, car tyres, wooden slats, reals of electrical wires, big drums with chemicals, large coffee jars full of oil, lobster pots, lots and lots of rope and fishing lines that the sea life can get tangled up in. We collected this within an hour and a half.
If you would like to help with cleaning up our beaches, organising a beach clean, or/and raising awareness please go to https://www.mcsuk.org/how-you-can-help/ for more info