Sperm whale washes up with 100Kg of litter in its stomach

The results are in for this year’s Great British Beach Clean

Thanks to you, almost 11 tonnes of litter was cleared from the UK’s coastline in just one weekend!

MCS ‘Great British Beach Clean’ data over the last 26 years has been instrumental in pushing for policies and initiatives which have made a real change to the marine environment, including the 5p carrier bag charge.

Lizzie Prior

Over 10,000 volunteers joined us over the weekend to clean and survey 437 beaches from Scotland’s Shetland Islands all the way to the Channel Islands and across the Irish Sea to Northern Ireland, removing 10,833 kg of litter in one weekend alone!

There were, on average, 558 items of litter on every 100 metres of beach that were cleaned and surveyed in the UK, with plastic and polystyrene pieces the most common litter items found, cigarette stubs following in second place and glass pieces coming in third.

MCS’ citizen scientists recorded a staggering 16,000 drinks containers of varying forms across Great British Beach Clean weekend, showing why there’s an urgent need for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to implement all-inclusive Deposit Return Schemes (DRS) as soon as possible. Click here to get up to date on DRS progress where you are.