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PFR beach clean update: we’ve got 99 problems, but a beach ain’t one!

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It’s estimated that for every mile of our UK beaches, 5000 items of marine plastic pollution can be found. That may sound shocking, but after our PFR office beach clean last week to support our partner charity Big Blue Ocean Cleanup, we can confirm it’s a likely figure! We headed down to Portishead beach (near our Bristol HQ) for the evening, to go on the hunt for rubbish and other debris that is littering our beaches and our oceans, to help the Big Blue Ocean Cleanup towards their mission.

seal beach cleanBig Blue Ocean Clean Up’s mission:

To drive positive change towards clean oceans that support all marine wildlife and sustainable living.

What we need to do to stop ocean pollution:

Big Blue Ocean Cleanup work to prevent and clean ocean pollution and to minimise disturbance from human development and climate change.

In order to stop the rubbish from entering the ocean in the first place, we need to make sure our beaches are plastic-free to prevent this being swept back out to sea. So the PFR team put on their gloves, grabbed their litter pickers and started to dissect the beach with a fine tooth-comb!

At first glance when we arrived in Portishead, the beach looked clean, but on closer inspection you can start to understand how marine life is suffering so much from our plastic usage. Tiny, broken pieces of debris can be found tangled in seaweed or among the rock-pools, waiting for the tide to take them back out to sea. These small pieces can have the worst impact on our oceans, with an estimated one million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals being killed annually from plastic just like this.

PFR beach clean: mission accomplished!

The PFR team had a blast cleaning Portishead beach and we can’t wait for the next one! It’s easy to get involved and do your bit for this worthwhile cause – head down to your nearest beach and start your own plastic hunt, or take a look at the Big Blue Ocean Cleanup to see how they could support you and your workplace with your future beach clean.

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Doing our bit to clean up the ocean with Big Blue Ocean Cleanup

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