THE first major beach cleaning event of 2013 has been described by the organisers as “a small miracle” after a mile-long stretch of coastline at Cranstal was completely cleared of rubbish for what is believed to be the first time in living memory.
A team of 26 volunteers tackled what was described by volunteer group Beach Buddies as “a huge problem” with thousands of items of mostly plastic having collected on the beach between Cranstal and the Point of Ayre.
Volunteers spent just over an hour at the beach and eventually managed to completely rid the beach of all rubbish on the beach, including a mountain of plastic items, some of which were clearly very old and had been there for many years. Cranstal was chosen by Beach Buddies for the first session of the year as “by far the worst rubbish-polluted beach on the Isle of Man.”
Amongst its finds, the group also managed to retrieve a large commercial lobster pot from the beach which had been lost by a local fishing boat during recent storms. The grateful ship’s crew has arranged to collect the pot from the beach later this week.
Following the cleaning session, Beach Buddies arranged with the Northern Civic Amenity Site to recycle the estimated 1,500 plastic items collected amongst 33 large bin bags of rubbish.
Beach Buddies founder Bill Dale said, “I really want to pay tribute to all the volunteers who joined in on Saturday and performed a small miracle on this beach. Cranstal is a beautiful part of the Isle of Man’s coastline and it has been in a terrible state for a very long time.
“So, it was just wonderful to see what a difference a team of 26 people can make in just over an hour. Once again, we had some new volunteers helping this time and I heard lots of really positive comments from them about how they had enjoyed helping to make a difference.
“The Beach Buddies motto is : “It’s not enough to just stand and stare’. Well, at Cranstal we lived up to that phrase perfectly and the volunteers truly did make a real difference.”
The next Beach Buddies Big Team event will revert to Sunday mornings from now on throughout the rest of the year. The next event is next weekend, on Sunday, February 24th, at Castletown Bay.
