PPE Found at One-Third of Beaches at Annual Clean Up

As volunteers collected trash in the 27th Annual Great British Beach Clean earlier this fall, they found personal protective equipment (PPE) meant to protect people from COVID-19 at close to  one-third of the United Kingdom beaches involved in the cleanup, The Guardian reports.

The annual beach cleaning, which is organized by the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), asked volunteers to record the number PPE they found. The results were recently tallied and found that face masks and gloves were found at 30% of the 385 coastal areas cleaned by volunteers. It was the first time PPE was added as one of the options on the beaches’ cleanup surveys. In addition to being found on the shore, face masks and gloves made up 69% of inland litter collected by volunteers.

“The amount of PPE our volunteers found on beaches and inland this year is of concern,” said Lizzie Prior, the Great British Clean coordinator at MCS. “Considering mask-wearing was only made mandatory in shops in England in late July, little more than three months before the Great British Beach Clean, the sharp increase in PPE litter should be a warning for what could be a new form of litter polluting our beaches in the future.”

“Despite lockdown, with many of us spending more time at home, littering in public spaces has continued unabated,” said Laura Foster head of clean seas at the MCS.

The five most common litter items found on UK beaches surveyed during the cleanup were:

• 1. Plastic and polystyrene pieces – 167.2 found per 100 meters of beach
• 2. Plastic and polystyrene caps and lids – 19.7 per 100 meters of beach
• 3. Wet wipes – 17.7 per 100 meters of beach
• 4. Cigarette stubs – 16.2 per 100 meters of beach
• 5. Plastic string – 15.8 per 100 meters of beach.