PHOTOS: Great Effort By Volunteers To Clean Up Banna Beach

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Volunteers out cleaning up Banna Beach on Sunday.

AROUND 30 bags of litter were collected by 67 dedicated volunteers in just one hour at the Big Beach Clean on Banna last Sunday.

Banna Coastcare in collaboration with Tralee Tidy Towns & MTU Kerry Green Campus organised the cleanup.

The Big Beach Clean is an annual call-to-action organised by Clean Coasts that calls on volunteers from communities all over Ireland to remove litter from our beautiful coast at the end of the bathing season, as part of the International Coastal Clean-up (ICC), operated internationally by Ocean Conservancy.   The ICC is the world’s largest volunteer effort on behalf of ocean and waterway health.

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The bags were filled with marine litter which included, fishing line, net and ropes and terrestrial litter mostly made up of plastic bottles, crisp and sweet wrappers, cigarette butts, plastic bags, face-masks and glass bottles. Some other finds included, a radio, a traffic cone, a camping chair, a wheel from a car and a number of shoes.

Volunteers out cleaning up Banna Beach on Sunday.

During the Big Beach Clean, volunteers were asked to carry out a marine litter survey to quantify the amount and types of litter found on Banna.

These surveys are aimed at heightening awareness about the issue of marine litter and serve as an indicator of the magnitude of the problem.

Clean Coasts share this information with the international Ocean Conservancy to form part of the worldwide survey.

Rachel Geary of Banna Coastcare wished to thank everyone that turned up and gave up their Sunday morning, a special thanks to Salty Souls Cafe for all the hot chocolate and Kerry Islamic Outreach Society for helping out.

Volunteers out cleaning up Banna Beach on Sunday.

Rachel said ‘we all have a responsibility in caring for our coastline, our beaches are important places for numerous reasons so it’s great to give a little back so we can continue to enjoy them’.

“Banna and the surrounding area have so much to offer,” said Rather. “Designated as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and Special Protection Area (SPA) because of the diversity of habitats and species, we need to do more than just clean up the litter, we need to protect and restore our vulnerable habitats.”

Martha Farrell of Tralee Tidy Towns said; “Tralee Tidy Towns were delighted to take part in such a collaborative beach clean with Banna Coastcare, MTU Green Campus and some of the Kerry Group team taking part today.”

A volunteer with some of the bags of rubbish at Banna Beach on Sunday.

Jason Phelan of Salty Souls Café added; “It was an absolute pleasure for Salty Souls Café to offer free Campfire Hot Chocolates to the younger volunteers that took part.  To be involved in a community effort like this means so much to our vintage Caravan Café here on Banna Beach.”

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