Big steps for Littlefeet's beach clean-up

Tuesday 27 September 2016

Islanders were out in force at the weekend helping local marine biologists clean up our beaches and found Ouaisne full of the most rubbish.

More than 100 people headed for the coast on Sunday for Littlefeet Environmental's Island Wide Beach Clean.

Littlefeet's Courtney Huisman said: "The worst hit spot seems to be Ouaisne Bay as volunteers removed 150 kgs of debris. Ouaisne Bay / St Brelade's tend to be the worse beaches for debris as they are exceptionally flat, so debris has no place to really hide, they are frequented by the public most days and the currents can get quite strong and wash a lot ashore.

"The headlands at Ouaisne, topping the break wall, is by far the worse I have seen in the Island. Plastic can be found over a foot deep into the soil - this is disheartening as this area is protected by the States but is overrun with rope, small pieces of plastic and domestic waste."

The charity had Littlefeet ambassadors spread all over the Island's coast leading the big pick-up operation and together they managed to pick up a whopping 296 kgs.

Mrs Huisman said they picked up loads of rubbish that shouldn't be on the beaches from polystyrene and plastic bottles to discarded fishing lines and ropes. They even came across a pair of men's trousers and a bikini!

She said: "We've been a charity registered in Jersey for four years, this is the fourth one, we've picked up just over 1,000 kilos of debris from the last three Island wide beach cleans.

"My partner Andy and I try and host beach cleans every weekend and I think we've probably cleared about four tonnes of debris in total."

The Littlefeet Environmental team will be out cleaning up the beaches again this weekend and you can keep up to date on which sandy spot they are going to be tackling next on their Facebook page here.