The Sea Starts Here
All around the British Isles volunteers, like Rosie and Steve in Cornwall, are striving to keep the beaches free of plastic and other rubbish, much of which has flowed down the rivers from far inland. We salute them and want to help by ensuring zero litter is washed into the rivers from our parishes.
Help Rosie and Steve keep our beaches pristine.
A Channel 4 documentary showing Steve Green & Rosie keeping Cornish beaches clean.
Rosie leaps from the boat to retrieve a plastic bottle!
Rosie is now a famous sea dog having been seen on Channel 4 diving into the water and swimming to pick up a bottle as she and her best friend, Steve, clear rubbish from the Helford Estuary near their home in the village of Gweek, Cornwall.
Where does all the rubbish come from?
Most of it comes from the land. All kinds of litter wash into the waterways from drains and gullies from where it finds its way to the seas.
Did you know that cigarette butts are the most littered item in the world?
No surprise then that they are the most pervasive man-made contaminant of the seas.
A drain in Stow on the Wold, Gloucestershire
Each cigarette filter is a toxic bomb in that it contains plastic and hundreds of chemicals.
See here for the science
Once in the rivers and the sea, litter is mistaken for food and ingested by fish…
By birds…
And by other animals…
Which includes us, of course…
Litter in the environment is just one way that plastic ends up in our bodies. Another is microplastics, which are shed by our clothes and leach out of plastic bottles. But whereas the release of microplastics is tricky to solve and relies on government action, the flow of litter into the waterways is relatively simple to stop by you, me and a few others.
See here for the science
We need to stop the flow of litter. But how?
We can all help Rosie by spreading the word that the sea starts on our doorstep.
Pikkers* ensure zero litter gets into the rivers
*pikker = protector of the holy river in Estonian mythology
Under a new scheme trialled in the Cotswolds, a parish is de-littered in its entirety on Tuesday and Saturday each week, plus or minus a day. Each pikker is assigned a stretch of road and they pik it on their own once a week. To see the Walks in your parish, go here.
But, take Stow-on-the-Wold as an example: Amanda piks the Red Walk on Tuesday (or Monday or Wednesday) and George piks it on Saturday (or Friday or Sunday).
Stow on the Wold. The mileages show the actual distance walked to complete a pik.
The frequency of pikking means the “holy” rivers and seas are protected and, since there’s little litter, the pik is doable at a fast pace - exercise combined with community service!
The parish is then shown on the UK map as a #PristineParish.
Each #PristineParish is a step towards a #PristinePlanet!
FACT: The planet can’t be pristine if your parish isn’t.
Would you like to support Rosie and Steve by helping to keep your parish pristine?
Want to learn how you can help? Ask here!
Please give your age if under 18
As another day of cleaning beaches begins, Rosie brooks no nonsense!
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