Causeway Coast Beach Cleanup
Causeway Coast Surf Club Beach Clean Up. Causeway Coast Surf Club is having a beach clean up in cooperation with Coleraine Borough Council to aid research on the impact of micro-plastic litter on local beaches. The clean up will be carried out in and around the White Rocks in Portrush on Saturday 20th June at 10.00 am. Prior to this there will be an an illustrated talk (‘If They Only Knew’) to your Club at the Watersports Centre / Club House on Friday 19th June at 7.30pm, by Jim Allen, the environment officer for Coleraine Borough Council. This is a power point presentation on the global issue of marine debris and beach litter (extent & impacts etc.) with a local angle. It’s largely based on Jim's own research into the problem and supplemented with actual locally recovered material (both natural and unnatural). This will be an interactive talk in which we would hope to have participation and dialogue by all the attendees.
On the Saturday morning, rather than simply clean an area of beach of any material that the Council’s mechanical beach rake has missed, we will collect from the beach micro-plastic litter (recovered from tide lines) and if the tide is suitably low, we can clear out the caves which act as sinks/sources of ongoing pollution. The council are providing all the appropriate materials for the clean up. The clean up will be followed by a BBQ hosted by the Christian Surfers and refreshments will be provided.
The project has been registered on the World Ocean Day website and we plan to invite club members and non members, as well as the Christian Surfers to take part in both the Friday evening presentation and talk as well as the actual clean up itself.
We would welcome anyone who is interested in attending both the evening presentation and the clean up to come along and get involved.
Micro plastic pollution is now a major global issue that affects every beach in the world and has a huge impact on marine life, fauna and sea birds, who mistake small pieces of plastic for food.
As an addition to the Friday evening presentation in the Water Sports Centre a representative of the Irish Whale & Dolphin Group, IWDG, will give a talk on what we can see in our ocean and how people can take part in the research the IWDG carry out.
