SAS’s Barefoot Friendly Beach Rescue Tour
Surfers Against Sewage’s (SAS) beach clean crew is joining forces with Barefoot Wine again this summer for the 4th annual Barefoot Friendly Beach Rescue Tour. This year the tour will be visiting 14 beaches across the UK between May and September to make sure they are as clean and safe as possible for all to enjoy.
The amount of marine litter found on UK beaches has almost doubled in the last fifteen years*, with at least 1 piece being found on average every 30cm. Alarmingly, 70% of the litter entering our oceans sinks to the seabed, with 15% floating on the surface and the remaining 15% being washed onto our beaches. Since 1994, plastic items washing items washing up on our shores have increased by 135%. Plastic debris can take hundreds of years to break down and can be lethal to marine wildlife. Over 95% of birds recently examined in the North Sea had ingested plastic items and over 100,000 marine mammals and turtles die each year from ingestion and entanglement.
With 80% of this debris arriving from land-based sources, including the general public, the power is in our hands to make a positive difference to stop this tide of trash. Beach cleans are a great way to remove marine litter, inspire community action and reinforce key SAS anti-litter campaign messages such as Return To Offender and No Butts on the Beach.
SAS Barefoot Beach Rescue
SAS and Barefoot Wine are calling on community volunteers to help clean beaches at locations around the country as part of the growing wave of grassroots activism protecting some of the UK’s finest beaches. To date, the Barefoot Friendly Beach Rescue Tour has welcomed thousands of volunteers who together removed many tonnes of marine litter from the coastline. This year, with the growing public awareness of marine litter issues, we hope to attract a greater number of volunteers than ever before to help remove this unsightly and hazardous litter from our nation’s beautiful beaches.
For full dates visit SAS.
*MCS Beach Watch Survey
