Over 223,000 pieces of litter were removed from Britain’s beaches over the Beachwatch Big Weekend last year, the most ever collected in the event’s 20-year history.

Running between 20-23 September 2013, the 20th annual beach clean up saw volunteers collect 223,405 pieces of litter – including half a television set, a set of dentures, and a bullet-proof vest – from Britain’s beaches.

Clean up findings

According to the organisers, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), the amount of litter left on Britain’s coastline is increasing.

Indeed, it found that, of the waste collected over the Beachwatch weekend, around 40 per cent of it was littered on the beach by the public (or littered and then carried to the beach by wind or rivers), with a further 38 per cent coming from ‘unidentifiable sources’.

Around 13 per cent was made up of fishing waste (such as fishing lines, nets, weights, and floats), with shipping waste (rubbish thrown overboard or lost at sea) and ‘sewage related debris’ (i.e, sanitary pads), both accounting for around four per cent.

The remaining one per cent of waste was made up of medical waste (such as plasters and syringes), or items that had been flytipped, including furniture.

Pieces of plastic were the most commonly recorded item of beach litter in 2013, as in the previous few years.

Regionally, beaches in the North West of England had almost double the amount of litter per kilometre than the national average (at over 4,000 pieces), whilst the South West, which normally has high litter levels, had ‘well below’ the national average, at just over 1,750 pieces per kilometre.

Litter on Welsh beaches increased by 60 per cent between 2012 and 2013 with almost 4,500 bits of rubbish per kilometre, while in Scotland, despite the amount of volunteers doubling between 2012 and 2013, the amount of waste collected was three per cent lower than the year before.

Reversing the ‘rising tide of beach litter’

Lauren Eyles, MCS Beachwatch Officer, said: "This is a disgusting tide of litter which is threatening the safety of beach visitors both human and animal. It’s coming in from the sea, being blown from the land or simply being dumped and dropped. After 20 years of campaigning, it’s disheartening that in 2013 we are seeing worse litter levels than ever.”

Adding that “plastic is a real issue for our oceans and beaches”, Eyles said that in 2013, volunteers picked up “lots of lids and caps” from drink containers.

However, she added, “despite it being a really warm summer, we saw less crisp, sweets and lolly wrappers and fewer plastic bottles [littered]”.

MCS says that ‘urgent steps’ must now be taken to ‘reverse the rising tide of beach litter’, and, as such, it will be launching a Marine Litter Action Network in June 2014, which will be tasked with ‘changing behaviour in a variety of areas from the plastics industry to manufacturing, retail to shipping’.

Eyles said: “Marine Litter Action Network meetings and workshops will take place between June 2014 and June 2015. Experts from the areas that we believe can do more will be joining us to identify ways that everyone can help reduce marine litter. This is no talking shop – we will have a year to make a difference, and will be presenting the government with our plans, which we will be asking them to implement as part of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive”.

MSC will be running more beach cleans and surveys throughout the year, with the next even taking place between 24-30 April.

To date, 59,493 volunteers have taken part in a Beachwatch Big Weekend, removing 5,528,399 pieces of litter from 3,080.5 kilometres of coastline.

Find out more about MSC’s coastline work.