Members of the UK public are being asked to spend two minutes on Saturday (11 June) picking litter from a beach, mountain, river or woods as part of the first national #2minutebeachclean Day.

The idea behind the day of action is to encourage beach-users to take two minutes every visit to pick up litter.

Those taking part are then asked to take a photo of the litter collected, tag it on Twitter or Instagram with the #2minutebeachclean hashtag to spread the word and then, of course, put it in the waste or recycling bin.

The Beach Clean Network, which is running the day and has been running the #2minutebeachclean campaign since 2013, will use the tagged posts to create a map of litter photos. The UK-based organisation was set up in 2009 by ‘surfer and beach lover’ Martin Dorey in 2009 and already has a map of thousands of tagged posts from around the world.

The campaign focuses on the issue of marine plastic, and the damaging effects it has on sea life, birds and ultimately humans, stating: ‘While a two-minute beach clean might seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things, it is important. Every piece of plastic that you remove from the marine environment is no longer a danger to the animals that still live there. They won’t break down into microplastics, strangle seabirds or mammals or end up being ingested.’

Dorey commented in a promotional video: “I love my food, and I love my fish. And the last thing I want is for me to have a fish on my plate that’s full of toxic plastic. Hence every single piece of plastic I remove from the beach is a piece of plastic that isn’t going to end up in my dinner, or killing a seabird.”

Growing awareness of marine plastic pollution

In January this year, a study on ocean waste found that fishing gear, such as fishing lines and nets, poses the greatest overall threat to marine wildlife by entanglement. Plastic bags and balloons pose the second biggest concern as they are often mistaken for jellyfish and are ingested as a consequence.

Last week, meanwhile, a study published by Uppsala University in Sweden revealed that fish that had been exposed to microplastics as larvae preferred to eat plastic than their natural prey, stunting growth and making them more exposed to predators.

As little can be done to clean up microplastics once they are present in the sea, and efforts to collect larger items of debris are in their infancy, with some doubting their feasibility, Eunomia Research & Consulting recently released research findings that suggest that efforts to combat plastic pollution of the sea should focus on beaches rather than the sea itself.

Eunomia says that barely one per cent of marine plastics are to be found floating at or near the ocean’s surface, with an average of less than one kilogramme (kg) found in each square kilometre (km2) of ocean, whereas plastic concentration is estimated to be 2,000kg/km2 on beaches.

Beach cleaning in the UK

A similar annual event, ‘The Great British Beach Clean’, organised by the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), has asked for volunteers to join in a weekend of litter picking taking place in September.

Over 6,000 volunteers took part in the UK event last year, cleaning 340 beaches and recording the largest amount of litter per km in its history, a total of 3,298 items.

As for the rest of the world, results from the 2015 International Coastal Cleanup published in May revealed that 8,193 tonnes of litter were collected during events in 93 different countries, which covered over 25,000 miles of coastline.

More information about the ‘Beach Clean Day’ and #2minutebeachclean can be found at the Beach Clean Network’s website.