Peppercombe Beach Clean
Martin, the guy who organised this beach clean, had been in touch for some while - an awesome example of somebody motivating the nearby community to make a massive tangible impact on a local problem. Sadly we could not make the day, but there was a great turnout and the day was a total success – read for yourself below.
On the back of this, there have been quite a few other coastal communities keen to organise similar events in different locations. Anybody interested should stay in touch and/or join up to Martin’s Facebook group (‘Ten thousand plastic bottles’).
This took three hours to collect…
Community Spirit Transforms Local Beach
On 25th April the pupils at Parkham Primary School, along with members of the local community, local surfers and beach lovers, took to the beach at Peppercombe, near Horn’s Cross, North Devon to give it a spring clean, tidy it up after the recent storms and enjoy a great day out. As well as clearing the flotsam and jetsam which littered the beach, the children noted down what they had found as part of the Marine Conservation Society’s Adopt a Beach scheme.
But it wasn’t all work, work, work. Organiser, surfer and parent Martin Dorey, wanted it to be more than just hard graft; “The idea behind the project was to encourage the kids to take ownership of their local beach and be proud of where they live. So I felt it was important to make sure that the message of beach litter and recycling was intertwined with having a great time. I got together a team of experts who I felt could give a really fun and educational day out. Thanks to their knowledge and hard work we were able to turn the beach into a fabulous outdoor classroom for a day. They also came to the school the week before to talk about what they were going to do. That really helped to get us all excited and ready to go.”
And fun it was! Whilst local volunteers helped to clean the beach, the pupils of the junior school enjoyed rockpool rambles with Joe Hutchinson, a ranger from the Biosphere Reserve, made paint from the rocks with geologist Dr Ranald Kelly from the Hallsannery Field Centre and chose the most brightly coloured bits of rubbish to make into a ‘rubbish rainbow’ with Mrs Recycle. The National Trust, who own the beach and usually take care of it, organised the beach cleaning. Local volunteers also made hotdogs, lent their land for parking and picked up rubbish. Devon County Council got involved too, donating recycled pens, rulers and goodies as a thank you for the children. Westcountry TV even came down and filmed the event.
Martin Dorey continued: “Everybody got involved right from the very beginning. We were lucky enough to have a couple of Land Rovers from the Clovelly Estate to drive the kids up and down the hill to the beach. Without them the kids would have had to trudge up the hill – this way they had a real adventure. And once the kids went home we were able to say thanks to everyone for helping by building a bar on the beach and celebrating in style - thanks to Lee Robertson, landlord of the Smithy Inn at Welcombe, and Sharp’s Brewery. So we all had a ball and the beach got cleaned up. Hopefully we’ll all be able to come together and do it again the next time it gets too bad.”
And thanks to the power of the internet martin has been in touch with a group in Newcastle who want to put on a similar event. He also hopes to use social networking sites to build a network of people who are interested in taking part in beach cleans in their area. He says; ”I’d like to think that this is just the beginning. We’ll definitely be doing this again and we hope that the kids of Parkham Primary School will inspire other schools to get out there and make a difference to their beach. With good friends, a few volunteers and the support of the community we can get things done and have a brilliant time in the process!”
