SAS is releasing the ‘Dirty Dozen’ league table, revealing the 12 companies to which it has sent the most identifiable beach litter back to as part of the award winning Return To Offender campaign.

The Return To Offender campaign is one of SAS’s most successful marine litter campaigns to date. Launched in 2006, SAS has sent almost 600 items of identifiable marine litter back to the companies producing them. Whilst SAS acknowledges that these companies aren’t directly responsible for dropping the litter, SAS returns the offending items accompanied with a call, for them to:

• Step up ‘the anti-littering’ message on your products
• Look at using less harmful packaging to ensure products can be broken down naturally without putting wildlife at risk
• Promote recycling and/or reuse wherever appropriate

SAS’s ‘Dirty Dozen’, who are accountable for 56% of the total amount of litter returned, are being asked to recognize that immediate steps are necessary to reduce the impacts of their products and packaging, and prevent it ending up on UK beaches.

The Return To Offender campaign is already making a big impact with some of these companies. Coke’s Director of Sustainability in Europe contacted SAS to discuss the positive steps they are making in the right direction and stated that they are prepared to meet all of the demands set out in the campaign. Make no mistake, Coke have a lot they need to improve, however, we are pleased to see them commit to steps forward to improve sustainability.

The amount of marine plastics on our beaches has increased by 146% since 1994 and this wave of trash shows no sign of subsiding. Studies show that 80% of marine litter comes from land based sources, such as the general public visiting our beaches. SAS are campaigning to halt this unwanted wave of rubbish, and has recently won Coast Magazine’s 2010 Environmental Campaign Award for our ongoing work on marine litter.

What is most striking and saddening to SAS is the overwhelming presence of single use product packaging in the ‘Dirty Dozen’. However we know that through our many marine litter campaigns, that include calling on the government to implement a National Marine Litter Strategy, our UK wide Beach Clean tours and Return To Offender we can make and are making a difference.

SAS Campaign Officer, Dom Ferris, says: “Whilst we recognize that it is not the companies themselves that drop the litter, we are calling on them to use the vast influence that they have over their consumers positively. By introducing new, less harmful packaging and doing more to make their customers aware of the impacts that littering has on the marine environment. They can help lessen the impact of their products on our precious marine environments”.

Keep Britain Tidy has revealed it’s winners and losers in the 2010 study. The awards recognise a whole range of criteria from lack of litter, good beach management and also lack of sewage. The number has dropped by one from last year but is still up from 24 to 77 in a decade.

Download the pdf here.

SAS’s UFOs campaign of course refers to Unidentified Floating Objects! The new campaign calls on the public to help identify persistent marine litter and allows them to upload their own UFOs, in the hope that SAS can trace the polluters and change their damaging industrial practices.

SAS have captured 2 types of mysterious UFO and are calling on the public’s expertise to help identify what they are used for, by whom and where. Armed with this information SAS will be able to trace the polluter and work with them to prevent these UFO invading our beaches in future. Please email your identification ideas to dom@sas.org.uk.

SAS are also calling on beach users all over the UK to be vigilant when on their local beaches. If you witness a UFO on your beach, and if it’s safe to do so, capture it and send it to SAS’s Area 51 gallery by post or send an image to dom@sas.org.uk and we’ll upload it. From here we can call on experts all over the world to aid us with identifying these UFO.

SAS Campaign Director Andy Cummins says: “These Unidentified Floating Objects, or UFOs as we know them, are invading our beaches all over the UK. You can be an active and important part of this campaign. With your knowledge and expertise we can trace the UFOs origins and bring a stop to these alien invaders by tackling the polluting companies.”

SAS waved goodbye to winter in spectacular style with their most successful spring clean to date, with 8 beach cleans taking place in Cornwall, Pembrokeshire, Brighton, North Yorkshire and Edinburgh. Lead by SAS campaigns staff, SAS reps and volunteer organisers almost 350 volunteers stuffed over 600 refuse bags. Relieving the ocean environment of the burden of over 2 tonnes of man made, marine litter (in just two hours!).

What was sadly unsurprising is that the majority of the litter found was plastics and that 2 tonnes, although amazing, is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. The problems associated with plastics in the marine environment are reaching apocalyptic levels. A plastic bottle will take at least 450 years to break down and whilst this occurs will serve as a magnet for highly toxic chemicals. Marine animals have been shown to mistake plastics for food and at least 100,000 marine mammals and 1,000,000 sea birds die of plastic entanglement or suffocation each year. With there being 1 piece of marine litter for every 48 square centimetres of beach in the UK and that fact that not a single beach on the entire planet is free of man made debris, the problem has surely reached a point that can no longer be ignored.

The facts on marine litter are undeniable and distressing. However, on this, the first day of spring in a new decade, it was possible to feel some hope that we can turn it around. This hope came from the great atmosphere felt at all of the beach cleans and the passion and determination shown by so many people from such a great variety of backgrounds. By Sunday afternoon it was clear that the action of SAS and its wonderful volunteers had made a real and visible difference to the condition of 8 of our beautiful beaches.

SAS Campaigns Officer, Dom Ferris says; “The weekend leaves me with mixed emotions. On one hand it is so inspiring to see all the volunteers donating their time and passion towards caring for their beach, but on the other it is distressing to see the sheer volume of man made litter that’s impacting upon our oceans. The fact that this problem is getting worse adds to that feeling. However with grass roots action like beach cleans in conjunction with SAS campaigns such as our petition to Gordon Brown calling for the implementation of a National Marine litter Strategy, we can and will make a difference!”

The Return To Offender campaign acknowledges that these manufacturers didn’t drop the litter on beaches themselves, but urges manufactures to improve their anti littering message, reduce their packaging, invest in low impact packaging and support grass roots anti-litter campaigns.

SAS supporters all around the UK can actively participant in the Return To Offender campaign. Simply downloading the Return To Offender letter from www.sas.org.uk sign it and send it to the manufacturers with their litter found on our beaches.

Our beaches are the perfect and extremely popular environment for a family walk over the Christmas period. A beach walk or even a surf offers a great excuse to get out of the house and work off some of the Christmas time over indulgence we so often enjoy. On all of our beaches we can find marine litter. The majority of marine litter is plastic and the 2008 Beachwatch survey suggest that there is 1 piece of marine litter ever 40 cms of beach. The plethora of plastics and other litter on our beaches is not only an eyesore, but also a persistent and long-lasting danger to surfers, beach users, recreational water sports enthusiasts, and the wildlife and habitats all around the UK’s coastline.

SAS Campaign Manager, Andy Cummins says: “Ho ho how many pieces of marine litter can be found on our beaches? Countless. We can all help send a Christmas Return To Offender message to these companies who’s products litter our beaches and urge them to reduce their impact on our beaches. These polluters deserve a rubbish present this Christmas.”