Great British Beach Clean finds a third of UK beaches littered with PPE
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Face coverings became a legal requirement to enter shops and other places in UK in July 2020
Face masks and gloves made up a third of the litter found on UK beaches during this year's annual Great British Beach cleans.
Volunteers were asked to organise small beach cleans within their family and friends "bubbles", and to cover a 100-metre stretch of beach.
They collected litter and recorded what was found.
Despite lockdown and other restrictions, littering is still a huge problem in the UK.
This was the first year that the volunteers were asked to record the amount of PPE they found littered on the beach.
PPE was found on 30% of the beaches cleaned by the Marine Conservation Society volunteers during the week-long event.
They weren't the only volunteers to record such high levels of PPE either.
Source To Sea Litter Quest also recorded that 69% of litter pick-ups found PPE.
Great British Beach Clean co-ordinator Lizzie Prior said: "The amount of PPE our volunteers found on beaches and inland this year is certainly of concern.
"Considering mask-wearing was only made mandatory in shops in England in late July, little more than three months before the Great British Beach Clean, the sharp increase in PPE litter should be a word of warning for what could be a new form of litter polluting our beaches in the future."
Plastic is already a problem for wildlife both on land and in the seas.
People are becoming more concerned about animals eating PPE, getting tangled in it and being seriously injured.
Did you know? Over 2 million tonnes of plastic packaging are used in the UK each year. 88% of the sea's surface is polluted by plastic waste. Between 8 to 14 million tonnes enters our ocean every year. Britain contributes an estimated 1.7 million tonnes of plastic annually.
It's not just PPE that continues to be a littering problem.
It was reported that 30 drinks containers, caps and lids were found per 100 metre of beach cleaned this year!
Almost 99% of litter pickups find littered drinks containers, bottles and lids.
Marine Conservation Society are calling for England to take similar action to Scotland.
Scotland's Deposit Return Scheme has been designed to make it easy for us all to do the right thing. People pay a small deposit of 20p when they buy a drink in a single-use container and then get the deposit back when they return the empty bottle or can.
Dr Laura Foster, head of clean seas at the Marine Conservation Society said:
"This year's Great British Beach Clean data, in addition to the Source To Sea Litter Quest data, shows just how crucial it is that Wales, England and Northern Ireland follow in the footsteps of Scotland and urgently introduce an all-inclusive deposit return scheme. Despite lockdown, with many of us spending more time at home, littering in public spaces has continued unabated."
She thinks that in doing this it will "drastically reduce the volume of single-use pollution in the UK's streets, parks and on our beaches".
Have you noticed more PPE litter on your local beaches? Did you join in a beach clean? Let us know in the comments!
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