With hundreds of thousands
of tourist visiting Britain's coastal resorts every weekend, members of the
"Surfers against Sewage" (SAS) conducted a beach clean-up at Saunton
Sands in North Devon as part of "The Queen's Diamond Jubilee"
celebration.
During the clean-up, the
volunteer surfers were shocked to un-earthed some rubbish on water that can be
dated back to 1967 including two virtually fully intact "Golden
Wonder" crisp packets. Other items found were a pre-1973 Coca-Cola can, a
1968 and 1967 "Golden Wonder" crisp packets, and a 1990 "Snickers
Bar" wrapper.
It will be recalled that
in 1967, the ship "Torrey Canyon" hit a shallow ground off Cornwall
that leads to an environmental disaster spilling 120,000 tons of crude oil into
the sea. Considered as by far the worst accident in British waters, with a
massive effort the oil was removed from Cornish beaches that killed 15,000
seabirds and undocumented marine organisms dead.
Luckily the British waters
have recovered from this tragedy but we have left so many garbage in our
beaches and ocean and the waste is forever been increasing in our coastlines
and waters.
On the eve of Britain's
"World Environment Day" celebration, these 'historic' marine waste
products act as a sad presence of the battle against garbage in our waters.
Plastic materials daily
consumption of sodas and junk foods can create long term havoc on our marine
ecosystem.
The public is then being
educated to clean up after using the beach as garbage that remains on the
beaches are the cause of over 1.5 million marine birds, turtles and mammals every
year.
About 100 million tons of
post-production plastics have is now plaguing our marine life, equivalent to 5%
of all the plastics ever created. Ocean micro-plastics now outweigh plankton in
the world's oceans and are being eaten by plankton feeders.
Garbage has destroyed the
beauty of our beaches all over the addition of plastic bottles, fishing
netting, cotton bud sticks, carrier bags and confectionary wrappers becoming a
regular catch together seashells, cuttlefish bones and seaweeds.
The British public shall
do their share in avoiding an environmental crisis by cleaning the beach after
they leave and, trying to be more helpful by picking more garbage by other
visitors when visiting the beach. It is also advice to call the attention of
the public who throw and neglect their garbage on the coastline.
