Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Displaying items by tag: Join In Positive Action

#MarineWildlife - Clean Coasts 'Big Beach Clean' returns to Ireland in 2018 beginning tomorrow, with the volunteer effort continuing throughout this weekend of 15th-16th September.

So join in and take positive action by raising awareness of the massive damage caused by marine litter pollution on the natural world. This can be done by registering online as a Clean Coast group or why not organise your own event with family and friends.  

Once again Clean Coasts, An Taisce's Environmental Education Unit, is teaming up with the Ocean Conservancy for the International Coastal Cleanup event.

Clean Coasts in 2018 is to continue the growth and success of last year's Big Beach Clean, by increasing the number of beach cleans along the Irish coastline. In addition it is their aim to increase the amount of marine litter data collection.

As with previous years, Clean Coasts beach clean packs will contain marine litter data collection cards. This year they will also be encouraging their groups to use the Clean Swell App by Ocean Conservancy and will add a marine data portal to the Clean Coasts website. This will make it easier for volunteers to submit data collected on the beach cleans.

According to Clean Coasts, last year the international event involved 789,138 volunteers taking part from more than 100 countries. Collectively they accumulated nearly 20.5 million pounds (or 9.3 million kilograms) of marine litter.

As in previous years, among the principle litter culprits, cigarette butts—which contain plastic filters—topped the list at approximately 2.4 million collected. This category was followed by food wrappers (1.7 million), plastic beverage bottles (1.6 million), plastic bottle caps (1.1 million), and plastic grocery bags (757,523) rounding out the top five.

Clean Coast encourages everyone to enjoy being part of the movement for litter free seas in addition to being part of the world’s largest coastal cleanup event. Also for those participating in the marine litter survey.

For further information on Clean Coast, the Big Beach Clean and much more visit their website here.

Published in Marine Wildlife

Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.