We have returned to Bangor, North Wales, for another beach clean with the Endeavour Society.
We first paired with the Endeavour Society in October 2022 to tackle a small stretch of beach. This time, we returned to tackle an even larger stretch of coast. Traveling over 200 miles from our HQ, we knew it was worth the trip when we arrived to glorious sunshine and lots of litter on the beach.
Ten student volunteers gave their time, during the middle of exam season, to help clear this beach of litter and plastic pollution.
On our previous clean we found kilos of barbed wire; this time however, the things we found the most was broken glass. Different beach cleaning groups have different opinions on whether or not glass should be collected as it can be weather by the sea, however the glass that we found was mostly sharp, freshly broken pieces that would have posed a danger to anyone walking along the beach. Therefore we collected what we could.
Some beach cleans are fairly easy going, we just walk and pick up litter, but this was not the case on this clean. Bags were dug out of the rocks with our trusty spade, car tires were rolled out of the mud, large rubber tubing was dragged out of the silt, and iron bars were pulled from the sand. We were bowled over by the enthusiasm by the student volunteers who didn’t mind getting stuck in, and covered in mud.
While we did find some of the usual litter we see on beach cleans, such as ghost gear, drinks bottles, cans, and cigarette butts. We also found rubbish that we hadn’t found before during a clean. Some of the more unusual things we found included:
- Part of a fridge door
- A bin caddy
- A knife
- A paint can
- Foam matts
- Four large tires (all different types)
- A long 4 foot piece of rubber tubing
- Car parts
- Metal poles and bars
- Part of a vacuum cleaner
Some of the full bags, and items were found were very heavy, so rather than carrying them with us along the beach, we began to make piles that we could come back to. It was a real effort to all carry these weighty items back to our starting point. Showing some really impressive team work, everyone carried items together, forming a chain to lift the bags up the slope. We also packed the bags as a team, ensuring that everything went in the car to be taken to the local recycling centre a mile and a half up the road.
In total 18 bags weighing in at 124.1 kilos were collected. The most we have ever collected on a single clean! This clean brings our annual total to 136 volunteers working over 13.5 hours to collect 102 bags weighing in at 417.84 kilos!!
Thank you to Bangor University’s Endeavour Society for teaming up with for another year. Your members are amazingly dedicated and it was a joy to work together again to clean yet another beach.
If your group, society, or business would like to take part in a local clean-up event, contact us at hello@lifesabeach.org. We would love to hear from you!
