Big Aim …..

…all around the UK this week thousands of people who care about the marine environment have been spending time on beaches to count the thousands of pieces of litter on each beach in order to help MCS to build a much needed detailed picture of the state of our beaches and to carry out beach cleans.

Breckon Sands

On such a week I feel privileged to have visited four award winning beaches on Shetland cared for by local communities and visitors.

Two beaches, Breckon Sands and West Sandwick , which I hadn’t visited before on Yell where both stunningly beautiful and incredibly clean . I relished the experience of being able to let my eyes wander across the strandline enjoy and splash zones un-interrupted by litter. Joy !

West Sandwick

My trip north was a great treat in the middle of preparing for the Littoral Art Project exhibition. An expedition to collect beach samples (both sand and Plastiglomerates from coastlines in areas I previously hadn’t visited. All samples are now being processed ready for inclusion in the Neo Terra installations .

Pund Beach T Sadly 10kg of plastiglomerates were collected and carried out from Pund beach, a remote beach that has today been surveyed for the MCS Beachwatch. We hope the survey we did is the start of building a detailed record of the state of beach litter here in Shetland over coming years .

I hope the work I am creating using the samples collected from over 60 beaches will engage people and stimulate discussions to find ways of reducing discarded waste materials, to find more sustainable ways to avoid the increasing destruction of our marine and coastal environments.