How you can help keep Cork coasts clean

OUR majestic County Cork boasts a coastline of roughly 1,200km, with beaches, piers, coves and islands from Redbarn in Youghal to Garanish at the tip of the Beara peninsula, even covering Ireland’s most southerly point at Mizen Head.

With a mix of tourism, sports, aquaculture, fishing, trade, this coast is very important. As world renowned as the coastline of Cork is, the beaches do suffer, as all beaches do, from litter.

Plastics of course are a big culprit on our beaches, either being washed up by the tide, dropped by passersby, or even being taken out of the bins by hungry birds or a rouge wind. Any plastics, no matter how, making their way to the ocean will cause issues for water quality, fish and other marine life. Plastics, if in our waters, ultimately break down as microplastics where there are near impossible to remove.

A great way to reduce plastic use is through our bi-yearly plastic awareness campaigns, Plastic Free July, of course in July and Break Up with Plastic in February. 

We all understand that being plastic free may not be feasible but one or two changes in your day to day routine leads to a massive small change.

Through our citizen science clean ups carried out for the Big Beach Clean in September we found that cigarette butts were the biggest litter culprit. This will surprise many but next time you are walking along a footpath, in a playground or on a beach see how many cigarette butts you find, it will surprise you. Cigarettes butts are of course toxic and if they end up down the drain they travel to our water bodies causing issues for our wonderful yet vulnerable. This isn’t only in Ireland but through the Ocean Conservancy’s data collection it is found they are the most common litter item around the world. Come join us for the next Big Beach Clean from September 13 to 15.

Another type of litter we find on our beaches was not dropped by passers by but started in a bathroom. Waste such as wipes and cottonbud sticks that are flushed down a toilet can make their way to the ocean and wash up on our beaches. This type of litter you won’t find on every beach, but once you do find wipes or cottonbud sticks you normally find a lot. To prevent this litter ending up on the beach simply throw in the bin and not in the toilet, or even better find more environmentally friendly alternatives.

Clean Coasts, in partnership with Uisce Eireann, run the Think Before You Flush campaign to alert people to the issues of flushing sewage related litter down the toilet and how even with a flush we can make more environmentally friendly decisions.

Despite the presence of the litter, in Cork we have excellent Clean Coasts groups taking care of our gorgeous coastline, rivers, parks and islands. 

Cork city and county have over 400 registered Clean Coasts groups. Some notable groups in Cork are Clean Coasts Ballynamona and Clean Coasts Cobh in the East, Blackrock Clean Up Group in the city, Siuloid @CCRC and Marc McCarthy in the West and Fermoy Tidy Towns in the North of the country and island based groups such as MeithealOhlean Teanga Cheire on Cape Clear Island. These groups and so many more, too many to name do tireless work for the good of their community and our environment.

To learn more about joining or setting up a Clean Coasts group please contact us, whether you plan to clean up once a day or once a year there is room for everyone and everyone’s actions make a difference.

In the city Dave from Blackrock Clean Up Group said; “The litter here is anything that floats but mainly bottles, cans, food packaging. We find our actions help to raise awareness of litter issues and that people are less likely to litter an clean area.”

For more on the work of Clean Coasts see https://cleancoasts.org/