Our beach clean story...
When we decided to try to form the Ocean Conservation Society back in summer 2021, we knew that hosting regular beach cleans would be an integral part of what we did. The aims of the beach cleans are to raise awareness of the issue of marine litter both within the and outwith the University and get young people actively involved in conservation work.
Our first beach clean as an affiliated society was in September 2021. We managed to procure equipment from Surfers Against Sewage and headed to Portobello beach where we collected 15kg of rubbish. Following this we decided to do a beach clean on the first Saturday of every month!
In November, during Sustainability Week, we hosted the Societies Unite Beach Clean, with the aim of getting people from all sorts of societies involved on Ocean Conservation and thinking about the impacts of litter on marine life and the beautiful shores around Edinburgh. An amazing 17 societies got involved including:
- sleep society
- eco society
- magic society
- pole dance society
- muslim society
- biology society
- brewing society
- veg society
- watt women in STEM society
- chemistry society
- robotics society
- achitectural engineering society
- business society
- marketing society
- consulting society
- photography society
- foodie society
This great turnout showed that anyone can have a passion for defending our Earth! We headed to Silverknowes/Cramond beaches armed with our litter picking gear provided by Surfers Against Sewage. There we managed to collect a total of 54.6kg of rubbish when covering 2km of beach which is the record total for the OCS.
By our 4th beach clean we were lucky enough to have formed a collaboration with the national Marine Conservation Society in which we collect data on the types of litter we collect and how much of each type we found. By collecting this information we are able to provide further insight into the extent and cause of the marine litter problem which has allowed us to have an even greater impact.
Get involved in our beach cleans to help make an positive impact on Edinburghs coastal environment!