There’s “no room for complacency” warns a charity that has been monitoring marine litter around Guernsey’s coastline.

​The latest annual report from the Clean Earth Trust warns that the amount of litter on our beaches has not seen any material decrease, even with a substantial increase in the amount of people volunteering time to help tidy up. 

Nearly half of all waste washed up is attributed to public sources.

Plastic remains the dominant pollutant, but the high volume of cigarette butts identified also continues to be a concern said the charity.

Last year, 969 volunteers contributed 1,381 hours to cleaning Guernsey’s coastline.

Together they identified 1,005 items of waste. 45.8% of that rubbish came from public sources.

​Plastic made up the bulk of the waste, with 23,405 pieces collected (77.6%).

Paper was the next most common found, with 2,837 items (9.4%) identified.

Metal items totalled 1,030 (3.4%). 

Volunteers also found discarded ​wood 766 times, 607 items of ​glass, 606 scraps of fabric, and 464 items made of rubber. 

cigarette butts on a beach
Pictured: Lots of cigarette butts continue to be found despite the number of smokers locally continuing to decline.

The Clean Earth Trust says cigarette butts continue to be the most frequently found detritus on Guernsey beaches.

7,126 were found last year alone.

This conflicts with Public Health’s efforts to have the island designated as ‘smoke-free’ with fewer than 10% of the resident population smoking.

​After cigarette waste, plastic food wrappers were the next most commonly found item with 3,046 picked up last year. Pieces of ​polystyrene came in third at 985. 

Pictured: Volunteers helped compile the data.

This data from 2025 shows the problem with washed up rubbish has worsened in several areas when compared to 2024, even with more volunteers taking part in the beach cleans used to monitor the issue.

The number of people helping more than doubled, rising from 387 volunteers in 2024 to 969 in 2025.

A spokesperson for The Clean Earth Trust said this work will have to continue as ​”waste continues to be a plague on our local coastlines and beach cleaning is just as important now as it was when we started the project in 2021.”  

The “2025 figures show that, despite our efforts and those of many individuals who pick up litter, the quantity of waste found is not materially decreasing year on year,” added the spokesperson.