Environmental Fun in the Sun
Spring is here and if you like beachcombing as well as organis-ing and categorising things, Strandliners could be the group for you. Founded in 2012 and incorporated in 2018 as a community interest company, Strandliners is an all-volunteer grassroots organisation based in East Sussex. In 2019, Strandliners’ local volunteers committed over 820 hours of their own time to the war on plastic. In 2020 they still managed to identify over 16,000 items of plastic pollution in our environment – unlike litter clean ups, they sort, identify and record the rubbish picked up.
And if you are new to Hastings and would like to tap into the some of the interesting people who live here, the mixture you will find in groups like this is a great place to start. Strandliners’ dedicated teams, six to 20 in number at each event, have included a geologist, a TV presenter, an architect, an engineer, a yoga teacher, mums, dads, their sons and daughters, and many more.
Sorting and recording
PICTURE: Poppy Rampling
Their common cause is to identify the toxic waste they pick and trace it to its source: domestic, agricultural, shipping, industrial, medical and commercial. And if you are tired of the adversarial nature of life today, Strandliners engage ‘polluters’ as stakeholders not adversaries in a cross-community effort. “If we work together, we all have a better chance of turning back the plastic tide,” says Andy Dinsdale, founder and coordinator. Activities range along the coast from the River Cuckmere in the west to Dungeness in the east; from Pett Level and Camber Sands on Rye Bay, up the River Rother to Brede and beyond.
Strandliners survey for plastic pollution through identification and record the data for organisations including the Marine Conservation Society, Break Free From Plastic, Surfers Against Sewage and FIDRA, an environmental charity. “All the time we identify and record plastic in the environment we become more aware of this pervasive issue,” says Andy.
Current focus is on the River Rother plastic pollution brand audit (for the Global Brand audit Report and Break Free From Plastic).
Upcoming events:
Tuesday 6th April to Thursday 15th April: Sessions at various points along the River Rother. All sessions may have to change due to weather and amount of rubbish found. Saturday 17th April & Sun 18th April: identification, sorting and recording sessions at a venue nearby. Anyone wishing to join in should visit the website for more details and how to register.
The group is also about to launch a new local campaign for anyone out walking who finds a drinking bottle on the ground, Bottles From… This involves recording all drinking bottles found in the environment. These larger items are ones that most environmentally conscious people pick up if seen on the beach or in a hedge and then put straight into a bin – which means there is no record to show that the bottle was a polluting item. Already 150 bottles have been registered under this new scheme.
The Bottles From… campaign will ask anyone who picks up litter to stop for a second, and record material (plastic, metal, glass), size (small, medium, large), brand (if any) and where found (nearest village/town and habitat – beach, riverbank, hedge, wood, etc). “It may add a minute or two at the most to the walk,” says Andy, “but will add much needed data.”
Transporting
PICTURE: Andy Dinsdale
And there is a good reason for this data: the Government are debating the Environment Bill in June this year and part of that is about a bottle deposit return scheme. If Strandliners can collect this information and send it to the Government by then, it should remind them of the importance of removing pollution out of our environment through a deposit return scheme. And it may help determine which type of deposit scheme is the most appropriate. The information will also go to the Marine Conservation Society as part of their campaign.
This can be one small step for everyone who goes out and walks, but collectively we can make a difference. You can support Strandliners by becoming a member. For a subscription of £10 per year you will receive benefits such as: priority booking for their winter workshops, a walk and talk with Andy Dinsdale, a special quarterly magazine, and entry into an exclusive monthly draw.
• For more information visit https://strandliners.org
We hope you have enjoyed reading this article. The future of our volunteer led, non-profit publication would be far more secure with the aid of a small donation. You can also support local journalism by becoming a friend of HIP. It only takes a minute and we would be very grateful.
Leave a Reply