Litter!
Help
Surfers Against Sewage by participating in their Return To Offender anti-beach litter campaign initiative. If you're planning on being at the beach today make sure you have a look around at the amount of litter on the beach and see if you can identify the source of any of it. More often than not labels identifying the company responsible for producing the products are still visible, despite the item being in the sea for long periods of time. Also, did you know:
Cigarette butts are the most littered item in the world. Cigarette butts are one of the most commonly found litter items on beaches around the UK. Cigarette butts are not biodegradable, but made from 12,000 plastic fibres. 1 cigarette butt can take up to 15 years to break down and pollute 3 litres of seawater.
SAS have also called on local authorities to make the ‘No Butts On the Beach’ pledge. For this they must ensure bathing beaches in their district have dedicated static butt bins with accompanying signage at beach entry/exit points so the public can use them to dispose of their butts responsibly.
Phones!
Support Cornwall Wildlife Trust; help the environment and get cash for your old mobile phone! Your old mobile phone can help Cornwall Wildlife trust protect important habitats and species across over 5000 acres of Cornwall's unspoilt countryside. How? Well, that's easy, all you need to do is recycle them online at www.envirofone.com
Plastic bags!
People in Britain use an average of 300 plastic bags every year. Each bag lasts up to 400 years, spending the vast majority of that time in a landfill site or strewn across the British countryside. People are becoming increasingly aware that we need to reduce our use of plastic bags.
In Ireland, a tax of 15 cents per bag resulted in a 90% drop in plastic bag usage, and raised 3.5 million Euros which was spent on environmental projects. Bangladesh has banned polythene bags altogether while Taiwan and Singapore are taking steps to discourage their use.
Please take a moment to sign the petition at http://www.green-england.co.uk/plasticbagpetition to introduce a similar tax (to be spent on environmental projects) of 10p per bag in Britain. And bring your own bag to reuse - or buy a CoaST bag! Just go to CoaST Bags Page to find out how...
