Beach Buddies had its biggest turn-out of volunteers so far this year at Castletown at the weekend (Sunday), and made a massive impact on one of the Island’s beaches most frequently troubled with rubbish.
The 27 volunteers collected 35 bin bags full of rubbish, but this statistic doesn’t do justice to the hard work put in by the volunteers, with many of the bags being full of hundreds of small items such as bottle tops and plastic bottles.
Two of the bags collected contained 333 and 335 pieces of rubbish, showing that the volunteers gathered in excess of 10,000 items altogether, at a conservative estimate.
In addition, two very large pieces of heavy industrial rope were retrieved from the beach, as well as numerous other lengths of rope, fishing nets, fish boxes and several wooden pallets.
“This was a wonderful effort by the volunteers,” said Bill Dale of Beach Buddies. “We have only recently started counting the contents of some of the bags, and the results have been a revelation. My personal thought was that our bags would contain maybe 50 or more items, but this has been a real eye-opener.”
The charity is also encouraged that more new volunteers have been joining Beach Buddies at every session this year. Eight new faces joined the team at Castletown, despite cold and very windy conditions - probably the worst weather for a session so far in 2015.
“We have been meaning to come along for ages,” said one new volunteer, “and we really enjoyed ourselves, despite the weather. We met some very nice people and we will definitely be going back again.”
Beach Buddies runs team beach cleaning sessions every weekend, usually on Sunday mornings, lasting a maximum of 90 minutes. All ages are welcome and the necessary equipment is provided by the charity, with all items removed by Beach Buddies and recycled where possible. They are very grateful to the sponsors who make this possible. These include AFD Software, SITA, WDS Limited, the Department of Infrastructure, The Scott Trust, the Elizabeth Clucas Trust, the Society for the Preservation of the Manx Countryside, Blythe Financial, Aston International, Charlie’s Mum and Dad, Zero Waste Mann, Andy Kerruish, Lloyds Bank, Bobby Sadler Agricultural, Santander, Douglas Rotary, Cains, Isle of Man Steam Packet Company, Zurich and Juan Knight OffRoad.
To register for e-mail updates on Beach Buddies send a message to beachbuddies@manx.net.
Photo - Regular Beach Buddies volunteer David Wilkinson smiling through the freezing conditions at Castletown on Sunday.
