This post comes from Jon’s best bud Ben, a keen surfer, fan of street culture and lover of travelling. Before jetting off to Perth for the foreseeable future, Ben has written about the really important work that Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) do ahead of their fundraising event in Bristol next month.
Ben (right) on one of our surfing trips near Hossegor in 2013
The South-West region of England is a beautiful and varied part of the country, and with numerous world-class beaches it’s easy to see why many love this part of the world. Swimming, surfing, diving and kite surfing are activities regularly enjoyed by locals and holidaymakers alike.
However, with the popularity of the beaches combined with the quantity of plastic in our oceans, it doesn’t take long for the beaches to get strewn with plastic litter and filled with washed up debris.
Luckily for everyone, Surfers against Sewage (SAS) have been tirelessly campaigning and rounding up volunteers to help keep our precious beaches pristine for us all to continue enjoying.
Vanish bottles washed up on Poldu beach – Photo courtesy of Aerial Cornwall
Plastic in our Oceans
It’s hard to escape the pictures of the damage that rogue plastics are doing to our environment and the wildlife within it. Fish, birds, turtles and other creatures are regularly found full of plastic or entangled. Every year, over 100,000 marine mammals and over 1 million seabirds are killed from plastic, and according to SAS, over the last 15 years the amount of plastic being washed up onto our beaches has almost doubled.
Now this may seem all doom and gloom but slowly things are changing. In the UK, Oxford has become the first city to ban single use plastic food containers, and the recent supermarket bag tax has cut usage by around 80% according to the Telegraph. In America a country-wide scheme has been launched to ban the use of plastic bottles. As well as this, SAS are running a number of campaigns to reduce the plastic in our oceans – one of which is the SAS Spring Beach Clean!
Art made by a local artist using a similar Vanish bottle, inspired by the Poldu incident. Image courtesy of Colin’s Lab.
Your Local SAS Beach Clean
The winter storms regularly wash in a wide array of rubbish, lost fishing equipment, lost cargo and other general debris. In the last few months we have also witnessed the force of storms Henry and Imogen which have washed in even more rubbish. So the spring is an ideal time to get out of the house and down to your local beach to do your bit for the community.
The SAS Big Spring Beach Clean week 2016 is running from 11th until 17th April on a number of different beaches and even rivers. For more info and to get involved either search on Facebook or check out the Surfers against Sewage site here.
