Beach Clean 2020

On Friday 25th September 2020, Chichester Yacht Club hosted a small Beachwatch beach clean as part of the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) Great British Beach Clean survey. They were a COVID-19 safe group of just five volunteers surveying 100 metres of beach from Chichester Marina towards Copperas Point. Gusting 30 Knots it was challenging conditions for litter picking! A big thank you to volunteers Pat, Jeremy, Robert and Drew from Chichester Yacht Club for helping with the litter survey.

Beachwatch is a beach clean and litter recording programme coordinated by the Marine Conservation Society which has been running for over 25 years. There are over 300 beaches all around the UK taking part. The Great British Beach Clean is part of the International Coastal Cleanup and today our Beachwatch data will represent part of the UK entry to the Global Trash Tally – litter knows no boundaries so this survey is part of global action to address the issue of marine litter and pollution. 

Beachwatch Co-ordinator, CYC member and MCS Sea Champion Christina Hall says; “Today we collected 3.5 kg of litter, less than 1.5kg of the litter collected last year on the same stretch of beach. Today was encouraging for Chichester Harbour as we collected slightly less single use plastic packaging and less cotton buds. We did however find tennis balls, plastic pens, a large plastic bucket, glass bottles, plastic bags and wet wipes so there is definitely more to be done when it comes to reducing and removing plastic waste from our shoreline.”

Chichester Yacht Club has many bins around the garden area and we would encourage people to collect litter and put their waste in the rubbish bins provided. Thank you for your help keeping our Yacht Club litter free. For more information go to www.mcsuk.org