Downend beach is a lot clearer of rubbish after attention from a large Coastwise team....

It took just 2 hours for 26  volunteers (click here for picture) to collect  50 sacks of rubbish on Downend Beach, Croyde in Coastwise North Devon’s annual beach clean.

Organiser Paula Ferris says “Downend’s rocks trap the litter and it needed a lot of us to clear it up.  About half of us were Coastwise members, the others very welcome local people and visitors who came to join us.  Our thanks to them and to Parkdean Holidays,  Ruda who helped us to dispose of the 2 trailer loads of rubbish, and to Downend Car Park for their facilities ”

Much of the plastic, metal and glass was broken up making it difficult to collect, but there was some big stuff too including a lot of fishing tackle.  It is depressing to see so much rubbish and it is not confined to the strandline but threaded through the seaweed festooned across the beach. We are truly trashing our planet.

The items we could identify included disposable barbecues, cans and  broken bottles,  a wristwatch, a car wheel, a road cone, cigarette lighters, tennis balls, and the inevitable odd shoe and gloves. Much of the other stuff was broken beyond recognition but just as polluting.”

Last year the group found 2 sea beans that had traveled up on oceanic currents from the tropics.  This year several mermaids purses, shark egg cases, were found on the strandline.  Two, not yet hatched,  a Dogfish and a Nursehound, were returned to the sea, but having been torn away from the anchored weed to which they were originally attached were unlikely to survive.