Marine litter sources: UK spends £18 million annually removing beach litter

Surfers Against Sewage is calling for a 50% reduction in UK beach litter by 2020.

The British campaigners have released the "Marine Litter Report", a document that highlights the dimension of the problem and suggests radical new measures to stem the flow of litter to oceans, waves and beaches.

Marine litter is typically classified into the following: cardboard and paper, glass, metal, plastics, processed timber, rubber, sewage-related debris, and textiles and clothing.

"Marine litter is one of the biggest threats to the health of our precious marine environment and it's vital that we ramp up our collective actions to combat the crisis," underlines Hugo Tagholm, CEO at Surfers Against Sewage.

"'Marine Litter Report' maps out radical, yet tried and tested, new measures that can deliver a cleaner, greener coastline by 2020. Cutting off the flow of marine litter at source is critical to our vision to stop plastic and other debris from polluting our beaches."

Smoking bans on beaches, environmental health warnings on single-use packaging, container deposit schemes and better enforcing fines for littering along the coastline are some of the proposals advanced by Surfers Against Sewage.

Did you know that approximately eight million individual items of litter enter the sea every day and that the amount of beach litter in the UK has doubled in the last 20 years?

Save one million sea birds and 100,000 marine mammals and turtles from dying annually from ingestion of, and entanglement in marine litter. UK can do more than spending £18 million annually removing beach litter.

Support Surfers Against Sewage, spread the message and act in your daily routine.

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