Far away and deadly finds on Sussex beach surveys

Strandliners ran three events for the Great British Beach Clean at Hastings, Pett Level and Dungeness. These events continue the work that the MCS started in 1994, collecting information about marine debris, plastic pollution etc.

61 fantastic volunteers joined in to pick, sort, identify and record all pollution from set areas. Watch out for the national results from the MCS shortly.

One of our strangest finds included detonation cord that had washed all the way from Massachusetts, when the U.S. Army was working to widen Boston Harbour! This has been travelling across the Atlantic and washing up since October 2022.

Our Young Strandliners group also found a Portuguese Man o'War! This is a siphonofore, related to jellyfish, that live in the Atlantic Ocean but very rarely wash up this far along the English Channel. They have a sting which can cause severe pain and worse, even when dead.

From the data collected, Strandliners are producing 'Litter DNA' charts for each site. These are a snapshot of the type of rubbish found for each site; it is fascinating to see how they change from site to site. The word litter encompasses many things but we use it as a general term. If we were to break it down into these 'Litter DNA' charts we can see local issues and even begin to put measures into place and reduce potential pollution at source! Could this be a game changer in our environmental pollution issues? Is beach cleaning on its own enough? Or will we continue to be a nation of litter pickers?

Strandliners are running their Community Action Team course in Rye on October 21st and 28th where we can learn more about the need of environmental pollution recording. Email [email protected] for more information.

Strandliners is a volunteer based not-for-profit organisation and social enterprise. www.strandliners.org