Biodiversity Northern Ireland

Beachwatch 2008 - Turning the Tide on Litter

2008 was the fist time the Mourne Heritage Trust had helped to support the Marine Conservation Society's annual big beach clean up event - Beachwatch.

We ran 3 coastal clean ups over the weekend of the 19th-22nd September 2008 involving local schools, volunteers and interested townspeople. The beach cleans took place on 3 very different beaches across Mourne and came up with some surprising results.

Kilkeel High School's entire Year 10 helped us to tackle an area of the Kilkeel shoreline, just south of the harbour. As expected there was some litter related to the harbour, but everyone was far more amazed at the number of plastic bottles they recovered. We are grateful to SPAR in Kilkeel who helped to sponsor this event and provided refreshments for all the young people involved.

At Newcastle, local residents joined us near the Slieve Donard hotel where we retrieved hundreds of shards of broken glass and loads of dog poo bags. This popular walking spot was our very worst for glass and sweet wrappers.

The largest haul of beach rubbish was at Mill Bay, a European Special Protected Area and Area of Special Scientific Interest. Here Mourne Heritage Trust volunteers removed over 2 tonnes of baling plastic, pallets, oil drums and fishing nets, a lot of which had been directly fly-tipped onto the shore. There was by far more litter here on the shore of this protected and unique habitat than anywhere else we visited in Mourne.

We will be helping to support Beachwatch again in 2009 and can help with organising beach cleans throughout the year if you are interested in getting stuck in near you. Keep your eye on www.mournelive.com and local press for details of events, or contact Catherine Bertrand directly.