Volunteers Collect 30 Bags Of Litter In Just An Hour On Banna Beach

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Volunteers in the clean-up on Banna Beach on Sunday.

BANNA saw a fantastic turnout on Sunday for this year’s Clean Coasts Week.

Forty enthusiastic volunteers, gave just one hour of their time to help clean up Kerry’s beautiful coastline.

Approximately 30 bags of litter were collected, along with a tyre, two bags of bottles and some old wire fencing.

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 and glass bottles.

Some unusual finds included toothbrushes, a coat hanger and a tracksuit! Rachel Geary of Banna Coastcare wished to thank everyone that turned up and gave up their Sunday morning.

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“It was another fantastic event, it is so heart-warming to see people come together to help combat the problem of marine litter, every piece of litter that is collected is a piece of litter that won’t pollute our oceans or harm our wildlife,” said Rachel.

“Everybody made a fantastic effort, 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,” she added.

Volunteers in the clean-up on Banna Beach on Sunday.

“Unfortunately, the litter we remove from the coast is not representative of the full load of marine litter in the environment. It is estimated that this only represents approximately 15%, the remainder is on the seabed and floating in the water column. All this litter has a huge impact on our environment, it can result in entanglement and ingestion by marine animals and ruin the appearance of our coastline. Sunday’s cleanup reduces these impacts, improves the appearance of our coastline and perhaps most importantly raises awareness with the younger generations, our youngest volunteer today was just 11 months old!”

Some of the bags collected.

The cleanup on Banna was organised by Rachel Geary (Banna Coastcare). Banna Rescue supported the event by bringing their launcher down to the beach to collect all the full bags and drop them in the car-park.

Kerry County Council supported the event by removing all the bags collected.  Clean Coasts Week is an initiative organised as part of An Taisce’s Clean Coasts Programme.

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