New beach clean boards welcomed beside the sea

Teignbridge’s award winning beaches aim to be even cleaner with the help of new litter picking boards encouraging beach goers to collect marine litter every time they visit.

Launched at the start of what is expected to be another busy season, the beach clean boards are the initiative of the Love Your Beach campaign which is led by Teignbridge District Council in partnership with Teignmouth Town Council, the Environment Agency, Teignmouth Harbour Commission, South West Water, the Town Centre and Development Manager, the Teign Estuary Partnership, Teignmouth Tourist Information Centre and district and town councillors.

The Town Council originally purchased several boards through the District’s elector funding and responsibility, including insurance, has now been handed to Teignbridge. As part of this agreement local Teignmouth business have been encouraged to play their part in supporting the initiative by acting as guardians, ensuring they are looked after and placed in prominent positions. Business involved include Eastcliff café, Shellfish Pod, Ice cream cone, Teign Canteen and Seasports.

Getting involved couldn’t be easier and it only needs a couple of minutes of your time. Simply come to Teignmouth beach, collect a litter picker and recycle bag, and do a beach clean. Then place your rubbish in the nearby bin and put your bag back in the stand to be reused. Please also remember to recycle any plastic bottles and cans in the bins on the seafront.

Alongside these boards, Teignbridge has also bought several #2minutebeachclean boards for the Ness in Shaldon, Shaldon’s main beach, Coryton Cove, Dawlish main beach and Dawlish Warren. These boards also provide beach goers with a litter picker and bags, as well as encouraging people to use #2minutebeachclean on twitter and Instagram to inspire others. Further information can be found at: https://beachclean.net/boards

Cllr Phil Bullivant, Teignbridge District Council’s Executive for Recreation and Leisure, said: “Our beaches are amongst the best in the country and we hope that all users will help us to remove any litter and rubbish and help contribute to our clean environment.

“By ensuring the essential equipment is available on all of our beaches and enlisting help from the public we can maintain our high standards and take rubbish away from our coastline.
Together we can make a difference and ensure that Teignbridge beaches continue to fly their blue flag and seaside awards for years to come.”

Cllr Paul Burgess, Chairman of Teignmouth Town Council, said: "The beaches in Teignmouth are a beautiful and vital natural resource for both residents and visitors.

“We are all custodians of our environment not only now but for future generations as such, we can protect our beaches and environment by taking even the smallest of steps such as encouraging all beach goers to clean up their own litter and take just 2 minutes to pick up any surrounding litter.

"This small act will when repeated many times will have a big impact on our environment and beach users today and in the future will thank us.

"This is a fantastic campaign and we will all as locals and visitors benefit from its success."

Cllr Martin Wrigley, Chairman of Dawlish Town Council, said: "Dawlish is starting to go plastic free, and I’m delighted to see these new beach clean boards and litter pickers that will enable people to join in.  We’ve all seen the importance of getting rid of litter and particularly single use plastic in the oceans, and with everyone helping a little bit, together we can make a big difference."

The Love Your Beach campaign started in 2014 and the group has worked together to take action to reduce pollution and make significant improvements that positively impact on bathing water quality.

Work includes:

• putting a specialist product under Teignmouth Pier to discourage pigeons from roosting or nesting under the pier and prevents their dropping from ending up in the water below.
• South West Water’s underground storage tank which reduced the number of spills of untreated sewage entering the bathing water during heavy rainfall.
• campaigns that encourage people to pick up dog mess if they’re walking on the beach
• business and community events including the ‘Love Your Action’ family activity days in Teignmouth in August 2017.
• seagull proof bins.