Sussex beaches are part of the record breaking spring clean

Surfers Against Sewage’s Big Spring Beach Clean delivered a record-breaking 231 beach cleans at coastal locations across the UK between April 11 to 17.

Led by SAS, 8,000 passionate beach clean volunteers came together to remove a staggering 35 tonnes of marine litter from some of the nation’s favourite beaches – recycling an incredible 10 tonnes of marine plastics in the process, making this the most successful Big Spring Beach Clean ever.

And in the south, over 1,100 beach-lovers took part in the Big Spring Beach Clean this year. Together these community volunteers removed over 2.2 tonnes of marine litter from the South Coast’s coastline at 35 beaches.

Hugo Tagholm, chief executive of Surfers Against Sewage, said: “Surfers Against Sewage is delighted to be collaborating with Parley For the Oceans, and engaging communities with projects to stop the flow of plastic into our seas.

“The single-use plastic vandalism of our coastlines has to stop and plastics valued as a resource we can’t afford to let accumulate in the marine environment.”

SAS joined forces with Parley for the Oceans to commit to recycling as much of the plastics collected during the Big Spring Beach Clean as possible, as until recently the vast majority of the plastic collected at all beach cleans went straight to landfill.

Cyrill Gutsch, founder of Parley for the Oceans, said: “Current plastic is a design failure. It needs to go. But this can’t happen overnight.

“We need to avoid plastic wherever we can, stop producing more of it, and retrieve and revive what has already ended up in nature.

“But to solve the problem for good, we have to invent a new material. Collaboration is the magic formula, because nobody can solve this complex problem alone.

“With Surfers Against Sewage, we found the impactful partner we need. Together we can turn this around.”

Surfers Against Sewage’s Big Spring Beach Clean is now the single biggest week of community-led beach clean activity in the UK.

The removal of 35 tonnes of marine litter – the majority of which was plastic – makes an immediate difference to the health of the marine environment.

The South Coast has more cleans coming up, visit sas.org.uk/events for more details.

If have been inspired to take action by the Big Spring Beach Clean get in touch by emailing [email protected] or call 01872 553001.

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