31 March 2010Death by Plastic!
SeaFrance staff ‘spring clean’ Kingsdown beach
Local residents and staff pick up 37 sacks of litter in their quarterly beach clean
SeaFrance staff and local residents braved the cold weather on a recent Sunday to carry out their quarterly beach clean at Kingsdown. As part of their commitment as lead sponsor of the Marine Conservation Society’s Beachwatch programme, SeaFrance staff regularly join local residents at Kingsdown to clean the beach and help monitor litter levels. Information from the litter monitoring is used to underpin statistics used by the Marine Conservation Society in their campaigns and environmental work.
The 28 people attending the beach clean picked up over 37 sacks of litter, the majority of which was pieces of plastic and plastic netting.
SeaFrance Managing Director, Robin Wilkins, commented: “The shocking fact is that plastic may ultimately never totally degrade. Some sea areas contain over 46,000 pieces of plastic litter in every square mile of ocean, and this plastic has a devastating effect on sea life. Seabirds mistake floating plastic litter for food, or become entangled in plastic netting, often with fatal results. We believe the work of the Marine Conservation Society is vital in raising awareness of the damage that litter can do to our marine life.”
Details of the next beach clean and monitor at Kingsdown will be posted on the SeaFrance website, www.seafrance.com. For more information on the work of the Marine Conservation Society, visit www.mcsuk.org.
See Comments below for more about the seabird shown in pic above.
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Gwyn Gives it Some Wellie for Comic Relief !
The Dover & Deal MP, Gwyn Prosser, kept up his 100% record of taking part in every Comic Relief Fun Run when he joined over 400 other runners at the Fowlmead Country Park near Deal recently. Officially opening the Fun Run Day, Gwyn praised what he described as “Our wonderful Fowlmead Country Park” .
Gwyn said:
“Comic Relief is now one of the biggest fund raising events in the country and fun runs like ours in Fowlmead make a very important contribution to the campaign and they are being repeated in cities, towns and villages in every part of the UK. But the most important of all those events is undoubtedly our very own Fowlmead Fun Run here in Deal and it’s great to welcome such a massive crowd of runners and supporters”
“Running the One Mile Challenge is great fun – these events make us more active, raise funds for Comic Relief and most importantly, they change the lives of people living in the poorest countries of the world and of vulnerable people here in Britain”
Gwyn also supports and promotes Comic Relief in the House of Commons and has taken part in every fun run event – either in Westminster (on the famous Westminster Mile) or indeed in Fowlmead Country Park. Go get 'em Gwyn!
