Marine Conservation Society condemns rise in bathroom rubbish found on UK beaches and urges the public to ‘bag it and bin it – don’t flush it’
The British public are putting far more down their toilets than they should be and the result is beaches awash with items like cotton buds, condoms, sanitary towels and tampon applicators, according to the latest findings from the Marine Conservation Society’s (MCS) Beachwatch Big Weekend 2010 report.
Despite litter levels on our beaches falling in 2009 from an all time high in 2008, last year average litter levels increased by 6%, with a rise of over 40% in sewage related debris – that’s the stuff we shouldn’t put down our toilets but in the bathroom waste bin instead.
MCS Beachwatch Officer, Lauren Davis, says the figures reveal a shocking picture of what people do in the privacy of their own bathroom: “Increasingly, people seem to be putting things down their loos that belong in the bin. Cotton buds, condoms, tampons, tampon applicators and sanitary towels are being flushed away with an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ perception. But sewerage networks and waste water treatment works are not specifically designed to remove these sort of items and, unfortunately, more and more are ending up in our rivers and on our beaches.”
The MCS Beachwatch Big Weekend 2010 results were collected by almost 5,000 volunteers who cleaned 376 beaches, covering a total of 167 kilometres over the 18th and 19th September 2010. 330,107 items of litter were collected filling over 3,000 bags. For every kilometre surveyed almost 2,000 pieces of litter were found.
Only two regions in the UK saw a decrease in the amount of bathroom waste found on beaches – Northern Ireland and the North West, whilst the largest increase was in the North East, where it rose by 230% followed by Wales with a 110% increase.
More information from the Marine Conservation Society
