Britain’s beaches are almost twice as dirty as they were 13 years ago. On average 1,989 pieces of litter were found for every kilometer of beach surveyed, representing an increase of 90 per cent on 1994 levels.
The report is based on information collected by more than 4,000 volunteers on 358 UK beaches covering 187km of coastline during 16 and 17 September 2006.
If you flush rubbish in your toilets then you are probably contributing in making the beaches dirtier.
That is because cotton wool buds and other small plastic items find their way onto the shoreline. Rubbish also includes cigarette ends; plastic bottles and fast food packaging add to that Washed-up shipping and fishing debris along with dumped medical supplies and fly-tipping makes a truly sorry state.
The MCS is now calling for a major public education strategy to tackle littering.
Emma Snowden, the MCS litter projects co-ordinator, said:
This should be such an easy environmental issue to resolve and yet the message is still not getting across – everyone must take responsibility to bag it and bin it.
Source: Telegraph