Surfers Against Sewage Right back atcha
The British coastline has on average 1,988 items of litter per kilometre of beach, according to a recent survey carried out by the Marine Conservation Society. That’s nearly two pieces of rubbish every metre. The average day at the beach, it seems, is becoming less golden sand and marram grass and more soggy condoms and sour stench.
That’s why Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) have launched their clever ‘Return To Offender’ campaign. Andy Cummins, from SAS, has been leading the effort with a very simple premise: “If you find some litter with the manufacturer’s address on it, download our ‘Return To Offender’ message from the SAS website and send it with the litter back to the manufacturers urging them to do more to prevent litter like theirs impacting on the beach environment.”
Despite positive responses from PR-savvy entities such as Nestlé and Coca-Cola, some manufacturers have been less forthcoming: “A certain energy drink producer’s reply surprised us,” says Andy. “They came back with ‘Unfortunately, and as you will appreciate, we can’t be responsible for people who have no regard for the environment or are just too lazy to throw their rubbish away properly.’ Now we’d have thought that someone who has just consumed their drink would be full of energy, not lazy.”
As Andy highlights, we must all share responsibility in preventing our beaches from resembling landfill sites: “We also encourage water users to pick up one piece of litter for every good wave they get. If they have a killer surf they should pick up armfuls of the stuff. Build up some good karma for your next surf. If you smoke or know somebody who does, get hold of an SAS pocket ashtray from our website. Cig butts are made from 12,000 plastic fibres and take fifteen years to break down. Each butt
pollutes three litres of sea water – no butts on the beach!”
You heard the man: get out and get picking!
This story originally appeared in Huck #006.
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