Toxic Plastic Beach Clean-Up In Brighton Continues

Environmental campaigners and other volunteers in Brighton are continuing to remove huge quantities of tiny pieces of polystyrene that have been washing up on the shingles since Saturday (April 10).

One theory is that the spherical plastic pieces, barely 2 or 3mm across, may have been part of a pontoon that came onto the shore at Thanet in Kent, then broke up.

According to the group "Leave No Trace Brighton", the pollution has been spotted from Brighton Palace Pier to Marroccos and possibly beyond.

Coral Evans from the group explained to More Radio one of the reasons why the pieces are toxic to all manner of avian and marine life:

"The impact on sea animals is that it's mistaken for food, so they'll ingest it, but the small pieces of plastic are undigestible, so they fill their stomachs, have a false sense of fullness, and so starve to death."

On Saturday, when the pollution was first reported, there's been a supportive public response to the problem.

Coral continued:

"We put a shout out via our social media platforms, asking members of the public, if on the sea-front, to clear as much as possible. 

"It's a really tricky pollution to clear, because it's so tiny and, on our beautiful Brighton beach, we have shingles.

"So it's either being washed back out to sea, blown to sea, or falling down between the shingles.

"Now, we have swimmers out in the ocean with sieves, we've people sitting on the shore with cups of shingle and water, letting the polystyrene balls float to the top and clearing them that way, and both children and adults are sometimes simply picking them up from the ground, one by one."

Coral praised the efforts being made:

"This has shown how much Brighton cares about the sea-front and the ocean environment here. 

"It's been wonderful to see people responding, and taking direct action for the environment.

"We're at a real turning point in the city, and it gives us such hope for future generations."