The Unflushables

We've done a beach clean once before in New England Bay, but this time we were helping Cumbria Wildlife Trust in a 2 pronged mission to clear the beach at Walney Island and conduct a marine survey at the same time.

On arrival we were allocated bags, teams, clipboards and pickeruperers (I think that's the scientific name...) and dispatched to a 100m stretch of coastline on the far side of the island.  If you're familiar with the reserve you'll know it as the section you don't often have access to due to nesting birds.

Was great to see a good turn out and even better that the forecast of rain held off all afternoon.  As we waded through the rubbish and began logging it a pattern began to emerge with plastic bottle tops, cotton buds and assorted bits of plastic quickly filling the bags.  I know from our previous litter pick that cotton buds get there because so many folks flush them down the loo - and that's something we can all stop, especially as sea birds have a habit of trying to feed them to their young.  There were also a large number of, ahem, lady product plastic applicators so stop flushing those too!

The record of the stuff we found.

Of course some of the items that turned up really had you wondering how they got there - especially the set of ladders...

After 2 hours between us we'd collected an admiral pile of rubbish, almost beyond belief that all of it only came from a fairly narrow 100m stretch of beach.

So much junk from so little beach.

All done we headed back for a well earned cuppa and a biscuit.  For full details on what was collected keep your eyes on the Cumbria Wildlife Trust pages.  It was a very well worthwhile activity, Cumbria has given us such a lot that it's nice to give even a tiny bit back.

To round off the day, as we made our way back towards Barrow, we were treated to a gorgeous sunset and rainbow combo.  Perfect.

One end of the rainbow ends on Piel Island...

...the other ends in Barrow

Beautiful sunset.

OK, I was getting a bit arty here...