Spurn Beach Clean

The storm in early December produced a huge tidal surge that swept over Spurn point, a 3.5 mile sand spit jutting out across the mouth of the Humber into the North Sea. It’s an important stop-off point for thousands of migrating birds, both in spring and autumn. As well as removing part of the road, the storm surge deposited a huge amount of litter across the peninsula. Today’s task was to start the clean-up operation. About sixty people turned up, together with the local press and two TV crews, and we spent the day picking up the debris. There were car tyres, fridges, gas bottles and deck chairs, as well as the ubiquitous plastic and polystyrene that we pour into the sea continuously. All that plastic is never destroyed. It only breaks down into smaller pieces, threatening the whole marine food chain.

A load of rubbish

A nice clean stretch of beach
 
By lunchtime, we’d cleaned up a long stretch of the beach on the eastern side, collecting a huge pile of rubbish. In the afternoon, we moved to the salt-marsh on the other side and collected up another huge pile, including 17 tyres. We left a mountain of rubbish for the council to take away.

Cleaning up the salt-marsh

 Another load of rubbish
 
Yorkshire Wildlife Trust say that in total, two tons of rubbish were removed, filling 400 bin bags. The collection included two fridges and 30 tyres. I appeared, briefly, on the ITV local evening news, wielding a litter-picker. 

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