Marine Life & Conservation
Underwater Litter Picking In Cornwall
Litter is the outward sign of a lazy individual or community. Discarding litter shows total disregard for other people and the environment. As well as being unsightly it is causing havoc in the marine world. Animals are caught up in it, others feed on it only to die of starvation and poisoning. We have got to the stage where seeing discarded drink cans, plastic and other waste products are part of normal life.
Mark Milburn of Atlantic Divers in Falmouth Cornwall decided to do something about it. Each month Mark heads an underwater litter pick at different locations around the Falmouth area. I asked him how it all got started.
“Early in 2012, a few of my past students had contacted me; they had been struggling to find buddies to dive with. I decided to organise a social dive which I advertised on Facebook. Quite a few locals turned up as well as some of my past students. It was quite effective. I then made the decision to organise these social dives once a month, to give everyone a chance to get to know each other at their leisure.
During an escorted dive in June of 2012, while I was showing someone the delights of some of Falmouth’s shore dives, I noticed quite a bit of litter underwater at Swanpool Beach. I hadn’t realised that there was much before; was this new, or were my eyes now open? I almost felt ashamed, so darted about picking up carrier bags and shoving them in my drysuit pockets. The person I was escorting enjoyed the dive and was impressed with my litter collection. I thought to myself “I need to clean this up”. It would be a huge task but worth it. Later that evening I was wondering where to do the next social dive, Swanpool wasn’t the most exciting of dives, just easy and quite pleasant. Then it clicked, combine the two, a social dive to collect litter.
We set a date for August, a Sunday lunchtime so everyone could have their ‘lie in’. The owner of Swanpool was helpful and organised a press release. We received a call from BBC Radio Cornwall, asking if we could be interviewed on the Saturday. When we arrived on the Saturday morning for the interview, there were huge waves crashing into Swanpool Beach. Sunday’s weather forecast was good but this wasn’t ideal conditions for the day before.
It was Sunday, 12 noon, and there were quite a few divers in the car park. Some I had never met before, some I had known for years. I gave the pre-dive brief, explained what we were doing, what was expected, what we could collect and what we shouldn’t. I had used the Project Aware site’s litter picker’s guide for the Dos and Don’ts. Luckily the weather forecast was correct and the sea was flat, although the visibility didn’t look too clever. The divers entered the water as and when they were ready, after being pestered by Julie for their details for her diver’s log. As the divers floated off there were several shouts about the visibility, it wasn’t good. I just shouted to go out further.
An hour and a half later, all the divers were back out. There was a pile of litter to be sorted and categorized, before submitting to Project Aware. The litter pick had also coincided with BSAC’s litter picking effort, so we sent them the data too. We had collected 16kg’s of litter of varying types and everyone had enjoyed themselves, so it was well worth the effort.
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It was then decided to turn this into a monthly event. The next month we went to Gyllyngvase Beach and did the same thing, and I filmed some of it. One of the divers was actually a BBC reporter, and he liked the footage so much that he showed his boss. It was then shown to BBC TV who liked it and combined the litter picking story with a camera I had found six weeks prior to the litter pick. This is the story that did the rounds.
The following month we went to Castle Beach, in some rather inclement conditions. We had spoken with some locals who regularly cleaned the beaches; they did a surface pick while we went underwater.
Pendennis headland was our next target, our best turn-out so far, with 15 divers collecting rubbish.
Over the past few months I had been in contact with Beach Care, part of Keep Britain Tidy – they organise beach litter picks around Devon and Cornwall. We had arranged a combined event with Tremough (Falmouth University), where there would be both surface and underwater litter collections. Nineteen divers in all went in, a split of half locals and half students.
Our last litter pick of 2012 was conducted back at Swanpool. There was litter there but not in the quantity we had found originally, we had made a difference.
During the start of 2013, the combined easterly winds and freezing conditions caused us to take a break from litter collection. By May the water temperature still hadn’t really increased but we decided to have a go. The plan for this year is to keep up with the monthly picks but also to try and get people to pick litter during social dives. The first social dive at Gyllyngvase proved mildly successful; it gives us a base to work on though.
The Ocean Cleanup, the global non-profit project, has removed a verified all-time total of ten million kilograms (22 million lbs.) of trash from oceans and rivers around the world – approximately the same weight as the Eiffel Tower.
To complete its mission of ridding the oceans of plastic, The Ocean Cleanup uses a dual strategy: cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) to remove the plastic already afloat in the oceans, while stopping the flow of plastic from the world’s most polluting rivers.
Through cleaning operations in the GPGP and in rivers in eight countries, the cumulative total of trash removed has now surpassed ten million kilograms. This milestone demonstrates the acceleration of The Ocean Cleanup’s impact, while underlining the astonishing scale of the plastic pollution problem and the need for continued support and action.
While encouraging for the mission, this milestone is only a staging point: millions more tons of plastic still pollute our oceans and The Ocean Cleanup intends to continue learning, improving and innovating to solve this global catastrophe.
This announcement comes as governments from around the world meet to continue negotiations to develop a new legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution at INC4 in Ottawa, Canada. Representatives of The Ocean Cleanup will be in attendance and the organization will be urging decision-makers to collaborate towards a comprehensive and ambitious global treaty which addresses plastic at all stages of its life cycle and in all marine environments worldwide, including in areas beyond national jurisdiction.
It is encouraging to see that the need for remediation is reflected in the various options for potential treaty provisions. It is essential that the final treaty contains clear targets for the remediation of legacy plastic pollution, and reduction of riverine plastic emissions.
Tackling plastic pollution requires innovative and impactful solutions. The treaty should therefore incentivize the innovation ecosystem by fostering innovations that make maximal use of data, technology and scientific knowledge – such as those designed and deployed by The Ocean Cleanup.
‘After many tough years of trial and error, it’s amazing to see our work is starting to pay off – and I am proud of the team who has brought us to this point.’ said Boyan Slat, Founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup. ‘While we still have a long way to go, our recent successes fill us with renewed confidence that the oceans can be cleaned.’
The Ocean Cleanup was founded in 2013 and captured its first plastic in 2019, with the first confirmed catch in the GPGP coming soon after the deployment of Interceptor 001 in Jakarta, Indonesia. After surpassing one million kilograms of trash removed in early 2022, the non-profit project has since progressed to the third iteration of its GPGP cleaning solution, known as System 03, and a network of Interceptors currently covering rivers in eight countries, with more deployments set for 2024.
About The Ocean Cleanup
The Ocean Cleanup is an international non-profit organization that develops and scales technologies to rid the world’s oceans of plastic. They aim to achieve this goal through a dual strategy: stemming the inflow via rivers and cleaning up the legacy plastic that has already accumulated in the ocean. For the latter, The Ocean Cleanup develops large-scale systems to efficiently concentrate the plastic for periodic removal. This plastic is tracked and traced through DNV’s chain of custody model to certify claims of origin when recycling it into new products. To curb the tide via rivers, The Ocean Cleanup has developed Interceptor™ solutions to halt and extract riverine plastic before it reaches the ocean. Founded in 2013 by Boyan Slat, The Ocean Cleanup now employs a broadly multi-disciplined team of approximately 140. The foundation is headquartered in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
For more information, visit: theoceancleanup.com and follow @theoceancleanup on social media.
Marine Life & Conservation
Steve Backshall to headline Shark Trust’s flagship event: For the Love of Sharks
Join a host of amazing, shark loving, speakers including Steve Backshall and the Shark Trust team for an evening celebrating shark conservation at the Royal Geographical Society in London this November.
Date: 29th November 2024
Time: 6-10pm
Location: Royal Geographical Society, London
Tickets: https://www.sharktrust.org/Event/flos24
The event will be a celebration of all things shark. Those lucky enough to get hold of tickets will hear from engaging guest speakers with a passion for sharks.
The line-up includes (*subject to change if unforeseen circumstances arise)
Steve Backshall: One of television’s busiest presenters, BAFTA award-winning wildlife expert Steve has been passionate about the wild world ever since he was young.
Steve’s impressive TV career has taken him all around the world, investigating a wide array of species and environments. Steve has filmed over 100 hours of children’s wildlife programmes with the BAFTA award winning Deadly 60 franchise and recently, with Sky Nature, for his new series ‘Whale with Steve Backshall’. He has been a patron for the Shark Trust for 10 years.
Simon Rogerson: is a photojournalist specialising in natural history, diving and the sea.
He is editor of SCUBA magazine, the official journal of the British Sub-Aqua Club. Simon started his career as a crime reporter but gravitated towards his ‘less depressing’ interest in underwater exploration, joining the staff of DIVE magazine in 1999. In 2005 he was named ‘Editor of the Year’ in the PPA’s Independent Publishing Awards. Simon also works as a freelance writer, contributing frequently to the Sunday Times and Telegraph, in addition to BBC Wildlife, Esquire, and a host of international diving magazines. He is the author of a book, Dive Red Sea, published by Ultimate Sports. Now based in Berkshire, Simon has been a Patron of the Shark Trust for 20 years.
More speakers to be announced soon. Head to the Shark Trust website to learn more.
The evening will also allow guests the final chance to see the Oceanic 31, shark art exhibition. Some of the artwork will be auctioned/raffled at the event, while the rest will be auctioned online to raise money for the Shark Trust Oceanic Programme.
For the Love of Sharks is an evening with something for everyone who is interested and fascinated by sharks. Join the Shark Trust, their Patrons, Trustees and Staff, along with a host of supporters for this celebration of shark conservation.
For more information or to buy a ticket: https://www.sharktrust.org/Event/flos24
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