Welcome to the Strandliners August newsletter.
This month sees the first Community Action Team workshop/meeting/training/hands-on session, places are still available but booking is essential. This is part of a groundbreaking project, funded by Sea-Changers, to engage with everyone who visits beaches and rivers, helping to identify and record the rubbish so that we can begin to identify the sources of this pollution, and then stop it. See below for more info.
Strandliners will recruit and train team-leaders to head local action teams in targeted communities across the River Rother basin: from Heathfield to Hythe, Rotherfield to Rye. All participants can help shape this innovative project where we can gather data as citizen scientists to help stop our marine and riverine pollution, just as others gathered data to support the Beach Head East legislation to protect marine species and habitats.
Get to know your nurdle from your biobead!
Discover international plastic pollution coming to our U.K shores.
A brand new programme – help to get it up and running
Thanks to generous support from Sea-Changers, a UK marine conservation charity, Strandliners CIC is set to launch a new and exciting community programme in our area: Community Action Teams. We raised the money; now we need your help.Over the next couple of months,
- We aim to identify local and international pollution on our beaches.
- Begin to understand what this marine pollution really is.
- Discover methods of surveying, either on our own or as part of organised river and beach surveys.
The point? Over 60% of the toxic waste we regularly pick up on our beaches and riverbanks comes from inland. Our goal is to engage upstream communities in the fight against plastic by establishing locally-organised and managed teams where people live and work; to educate, inform and activate them to become stakeholders and stewards of their own inland aqua-environments: their local rivers, streams, lakes, and standing waters. It’s a challenge, but look at the success of citizen scientists helping to create the Beach Head East MCZ. To make it work, we need a select group of dedicated women and men – volunteers like you – to train as CATs’ team-leaders, starting now.
Help Strandliners shape and refine its programme and learn more by coming to Strandliners’ first CATs meeting.
When: Sunday August 11 from 1.30pm – 4.30pm
Where: St Nick’s Church, Pett Level, TN35 4EH (next to the Smuggler pub).
What: An indoor and outdoor (bring suitable gear) intensive training programme developed with your input.
To Book a place: email strandlinersCIC@gmail.com
Refreshments provided – of course!
Future events
Strandliners CIC will have a stand at these events
Come and see us, we’d love to see some familiar faces
Sunday 29th September – Sustainability on Sea (Hastings Stade)
Saturday 7th & Sunday 8thSeptember – Bexhill Festival of the Sea
Sunday 1st September – RyeFestival of the Sea
Marine Conservation Society beach surveys and cleans
Friday September 20th – Winchelsea Beach – 4pm
Meet at end of Dog’s Hill Rd, Winchelsea Beach, TN36 4LX.
Saturday September 21st, Dungeness, Lydd Ranges
More information nearer the time as this is a provisional date needing clearance with the M.O.D.
Sunday September 22nd – Pett Level – 10am
Meet up on sea wall between Smuggler Pub and Pett Level Independent Rescue Boat, Pett Level Rd, TN35 4EH.
The Fairlight Berm – This site will be cleaned and surveyed later this year when the area should be safer to access. Stay tuned for further developments! Due to access there may only be a 1 or 2 week notice, but it should be on a weekend.
Recent events
Sunday July 14th – Dungeness, Lydd Ranges
We successfully undertook the second survey at this remote beach, the aim being that the survey area is far enough away from large amounts of regular beach visitors and so the data recorded will give a more realistic idea of exactly what is washing up. There will be more surveys and they will be advertised through this newsletter.
Images below (top left clockwise):- No sign of long ocean voyage but in U.S cents and oz?. Transparent plastic sheeting with “fronds” is a “Tahitian” used in mussel aquaculture. What language on this fishing crate? Mothers Pride – how old?
Comments and answers welcome, just email!
Definitions and meanings
If anyone has anything they’d like explaining regarding marine pollution, waste, recycling etc please email your question to us at Strandliners and we’ll attempt to demystify those technical terms!
This month – “Microplastics”
Microplastics are all types of plastics less than 5mm in overall dimension. This can be separated into two groups,Primary microplastics, (microbeads in personal care products, microfibres from clothes, pre-production plastic pellets (nurdles) and waste water treatment media (biobeads). These have all been manufactured at 5mm or smaller size.
Secondary microplastics are pieces of plastic that have been broken down through photo degradation and the motion of the sea over a period of time (up to hundreds of years too!). They were once manufactured items larger that 5mm in size.