Beach Cleans in support of George Heming's 100tonsofplastic initiative

2021 - The Beach Cleans are back! We are aiming to do two Beach cleans in 2021; Saturday 13th November at Fort Victoria and Saturday, 11th December at Colwell Bay. Both will be from 10.00 - 12.00 noon.

For more information contact Laura Wason (07752 388943, laura.wason96@gmail.com)

In 2019 YSC organised a series of beach cleaning mornings throughout the summer and whatever plastic we collected was weighed and added to George Heming's total to try to get up to his target of 100 tons.

Our first Beach Clean was on 13th April at Fort Victoria where 30 members collected 144 kg. (the weight of 2 average grown men).

The second Beach Clean was at Colwell Bay on Saturday 8th June. 15 YSC members with ages ranging from 4 to 73 turned up, armed and ready for picking up litter. The tide was out so there was plenty of beach visible and at first glance there didn't seem to be much rubbish. However, when you are on a litter picking mission you travel very slowly along the beach and before long we could see little bits of plastic everywhere. We ended up collecting 20kg of rubbish and reckon it would have been about 1,000 pieces of plastic that are now buried in landfill and not clogging up the oceans, a little step in the right direction and very pleasing to see the beach left in a much cleaner state by the time we left. We were very grateful to IW Council for arranging for our bin bags of rubbish to be collected and taken to the local landfill site, a real boost and much appreciated.

Our third beach clean was at Hamstead Beach on Sunday 7th July.

For the fourth beach clean, twenty volunteers came to Fort Victoria on Saturday morning 21st September to help with the Yarmouth Sailing Club's Isle of Wight Day beach clean, in support of "100 Tons of Plastic". In sunny blustery conditions, the volunteers spread out and worked along the beach in both directions, some towards Yarmouth Beach, others towards Fort Albert. We were delighted to have George Heming attend, it was George's initiative that began the "100 Tons of Plastic" and we were so pleased to hear that he had initiated 20 tons of rubbish to be collected so far.

On initial inspection the beach didn't look too bad, but when two hours were up, it was a shocking 100kg of rubbish that was piled high back in the car park. A large boat tarp, fishing rope, broken bottles, cans, plastic bottles, lots of small pieces of broken plastic and the heaviest of all was a mooring rope sixteen inches in circumference that was coiled like a boa constrictor around the roots of a fallen tree. Fortunately George's knife was sharp.

Huge thanks to IW Council and Brighstone Landscaping for collecting the rubbish at the end, to all the volunteers, to the IOW Day initiative that saw an island wide beach clean and all volunteers received a certificate and ferry vouchers as a thank you. And to George Heming's 100 Tons of Plastic goal that has galvanised the YSC to do six beach cleans this year.

The fifth YSC Litter Pick was on Saturday 23rd November up the river from Yarmouth Sailing Club.

The sixth Beach Clean was on Saturday 21st December at Totland Beach ending with Christmas refreshments at the old Lifeboat Station (courtesy of the Wason family). A trailer full of waste was taken away on that occasion.

During the time when we are not permitted by the Covid-19 rules to meet outdoors in groups of more than 6 people, we have had to suspend our Beach Cleaning activities but we will carry on when allowed.

For more information, or to join our beach cleans, please contact Laura Wason (07752 388943, laura.wason96@gmail.com).

Last updated 10:13 on 27 September 2023