September 26, 2022

Intersport Elverys Hosts Big Beach Clean on Bertra Beach | Clean Coasts

Intersport Elverys recently hosted a Big Beach Clean on Berta Beach in Louisburgh as part of the Clean Coasts national annual campaign.

A team from the Castlebar Support Centre were among 24 groups in Mayo who took part in the clean and helped remove an estimated 2.2 tonnes of litter from the coasts of Mayo.

Intersport Elverys hosted the event as part of their Sustainability Strategy 2030, which you can check out more information here: https://www.elverys.ie/Sustainability

clean coasts

The Big Beach Clean is an annual call to action that runs as part of the International Coastal Cleanup (ICC) and Clean Coasts, operated Internationally by Ocean Conservancy and invites communities and volunteers around the country to remove litter from around the Irish coast after the end of the bathing season.

A record number of 500 clean ups were organised this year and a total of over 63 tonnes of litter nationwide was collected.

Despite Bertra Beach appearing and being renowned as one of the cleaner beaches in Mayo, the team were surprised at how much litter they picked when they forensically walked it last Saturday morning.

“To look at Bertra Beach from the naked eye you think it is very clean, but when you strategically examine the beach for litter like we did, you end up finding lots of rubbish,” the Intersport Elverys team said.

“In total we collected 4 bags of trash of various sizes, at a total weight of just over 3kg.

“Some of the most common pieces of litter we discovered and picked was a huge amount of old fishing line that washed up on the rocky stretch, cigarette butts, food wrappers, plastic bottles and even condoms!

clean coasts

“While we were on Berta Beach we covered approximately 2.5-3km in two hours of litter picking, ensuring to keep off the sand dunes which the local community are running an active campaign to try and prevent further erosion of them.”

Each year this initiative is also an opportunity for Big Beach Clean Mayo volunteers to get involved in a worldwide citizen science project, which entails collecting the amount and types of litter on Irish beaches and filling in Clean Coasts’ Marine Litter Data Cards to share with Ocean Conservancy.

It helps heighten awareness about the issue of marine litter serving as an indicator of the magnitude of the problem and helps shape future policies and campaigns.

clean coasts

TAGS: #sustainability