The River Rother flows through Kent and Sussex into the English Channel at Rye. Camber Sands and Rye Town are major tourist destinations, and the tidal river system, longshore drift and human activities pose a threat in terms of the marine litter impact. Strandliners’ volunteers conduct surveys along the River Rother in the Rye area, and the surrounding beaches, notably Winchelsea Beach, Pett Level, and Lydd Ranges at Dungeness. The information gathered is shared with organisations such as the Marine Conservation Society and Break Free From Plastic.
Break Free From Plastic (BFFP) is a global movement demanding massive reductions in single-use plastics and pushing for lasting solutions to the plastic pollution crisis. Their brand audit campaign mobilises citizen scientist volunteers around the world with a common goal: to help identify the corporations responsible for plastic pollution and to hold those companies to account for their plastic packaging.
The brand audit methodology was designed by organisations including the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), Mother Earth Foundation, and Greenpeace Philippines, who collaborated in 2017 to launch the first large-scale brand audit on Freedom Island in the Philippines.
BFFP members have used brand audit data to pass bans on single-use plastic, create zero waste communities and plastic-free schools, file lawsuits, and advocate for policy change through Extended Producer Responsibility (or Polluter Pay initiatives) and Deposit Return Systems. Brand audit data is a powerful tool to change systems – whether a small community, a company, an island, or an entire country.
What did we do?
Strandliners have conducted brand audits along parts of the River Rother since 2018. Each year the length of riverbank surveyed changes due to the weather, time available and logistics.
This year, we undertook 8 sessions with small groups of experienced Strandliners’ volunteers, along 8 different sections of the riverbank. With the landowner’s permission, we collected mismanaged waste along a total length of 4km.
One of our restrictions from Rother District Council is that all rubbish collected must be placed in the blue kerbside bags provided. Anything larger must be left unless the landowner is able to remove them.
At the end of each session, the bags of waste were transferred to an industrial unit at Rye Harbour. We then held a weekend of sorting, identifying and recording, filmed by a professional film crew as part of a teaser for an environmental film.
Volunteers for the weekend, experienced in the sorting and identifying of mismanaged waste, first emptied all the bags collected into a large pile – really impactful in terms of demonstrating the sheer volume of riverbank rubbish.
The rubbish was painstakingly sorted into the following categories: household products, fishing equipment, smoking materials, packing materials, food packaging & personal hygiene. Each pile is then sorted into similar items.
At this stage, the recording onto the brand audit sheets can begin. The brand name, item description, type of product, type of material (polymer identified for plastic items as far as possible), number of each item and whether the items are single layer or multi-layered.
By the end of the weekend most of the rubbish had been identified and recorded, but a bagful of unidentifiable secondary microplastic pieces had to be left, as well as a bag of primary microplastics mixed with organic matter (earth and dried vegetation).
Finally the recording sheets were collated and the brands (where identified), items, type of plastic and numbers uploaded to BFFP. The bagged rubbish was left at the waste bins in the Rye Harbour car park, for collection the following day by the waste contractor, Biffa, as instructed by Rother District Council.
Our results
Strandliners removed waste weighing 750 kg from the banks of the River Rother in the Rye area. Over 15,000 pieces were sorted, although many were too small to be identified (compared with 130 kg and 3324 pieces in 2020).
Sorting by category, as per the BFFP brand audit, the results were:
This can be represented visually in the pie chart below, showing percentage (by number of items).
The top polluting companied from this survey were:
This includes many of the top global polluters but also local supermarkets. You can find the latest Global Brand Audit report here.
Primary microplastics
In many places along the riverbank, nurdles and biobeads were evident. We surveyed three areas and collected 1, 370 in a ratio of approximately 6 biobeads to 1 nurdle. Strandliners take part in the Great Nurdle Hunt each year, and were featured in The Guardian in January 2024.
Nurdles are small plastic pellets about the size of a lentil that are the feedstock for nearly all the plastic products we use. They are lost into the environment wherever they are handled or transported along the global plastic supply chain: from nurdle production factories, during transport on land or sea, plastic manufacturing sites and even from recycling sites.
Like nurdles, bio-beads are primary microplastic pellets, around 5 mm in size. But bio-beads have a very specific purpose. They are used by some water companies as part of the waste water treatment process: with their high surface area to volume ratio, bacteria cling to them during the treatment process. Depending on the plastic they were made from, they may also be contaminated with heavy metals. When they escape, not only does the plastic pollute the environment, but they cause further toxic pollution from the additives they have adsorbed.
Strandliners worked with Rother District Council and a Masters student from the University of Brighton to investigate bio-bead pollution in the Rother. You can read the report here.
Drinking containers
Strandliners recorded the drinking containers found during the brand audit. Milk bottles were recorded but not included in the DRS campaign as they are made of a different material and are unlikely be included in the scheme. We also instigated a “Bottles From…” campaign, to gather data for the consultation.
Discussion points
There are many observations to make from this single event and when comparing with data from previous years.
Compared to the Ocean Cleanup estimation of 800 kg of mismanaged waste flowing from the River Rother annually, the figure of 750 kg seems close at first. But we have to remember that only part of the riverbanks were cleared, leaving an unknown amount in situ (we had already removed 130 kg a few months before).
An unknown percentage of the waste removed this year would have been ‘legacy litter’, items that had been in the environment for a long period of time. How do we know how long items have been there? Sell-by dates and branding styles are a clue. We have found Marks and Spencer items branded St. Michael, making them at least 21 years old. With more of these clear ups on a regular basis, there will be an ever decreasing amount of rubbish that will have been in situ for long periods of time. This will lead to a more accurate picture of what is being deposited.
The rubbish we collect is only the rubbish that is trapped on/in the riverbank. None of the items that flow down the river and out to the sea are not recorded.
Very small items, such as meso- and microplastic, have not been recorded accurately as it would be too time consuming. The small areas that were surveyed for primary microplastic indicated that there could be large numbers of these.
The River Rother is tidal and there is evidence of organic marine items stranded in the riverbank, such as mermaid purses and cuttlefish ‘bones’; therefore mismanaged waste arrives from many sources (60% to 80% of all marine debris is thought to be land sourced) via the incoming tides.
There are reports that landowners and walkers clean up other areas, leading to unknown quantities of mismanaged waste not being recorded.
Food packaging remains the highest percentage all single use items.
Household items make up a high percentage of the waste for both 2020 and 2021. This is higher than would be expected and evidence is in the presence of black bags full of household items (clothes, tins and tubs from kitchen use). There is also a higher than expected number of empty plastic milk bottles; these are rarely found on beach surveys. Where have they come from?
Fishing items were also high in number. Again the source is unknown, whether washed up on the incoming tide or from the fishing industry and the wharf. It is difficult to ascertain the exact source of fishing equipment unless it is marked or tagged.