Flossie and The Beach Cleaners spend summer days clearing litter from Ireland’s beaches and have found that each of Dublin’s strands are notorious for their own type of trash.
Teeth and braces are often found at Seapoint beach. Sandycove beach is jokingly known as the men’s pants strand - volunteers found at least seven pairs there on Friday morning. And Killiney beach is regularly littered with tiny trinkets, with one volunteer finding a toy dating back more than 60 years.
In additional to regular beach clean-ups, the environmental charity leads educational and corporate workshops and partners with marine coordinators who hold monthly beach clean-ups.
As record-breaking temperatures have led to an influx of beach users over the past few days, Flossie and The Beach Cleaners have been busy. On Tuesday, volunteers spent two hours cleaning Sandycove beach.
And while people have expressed outrage at social media images showing Burrow and Sandycove beaches strewn with detritus, Flossie founder Harriet Donnelly said volunteers are actually finding less rubbish on strands these days.
“On one hand, we did see horrific things over the past few days. We know of one family who got up and threw all their rubbish in the sea. But that’s a tiny percentage of people,” said Ms Donnelly. “More people are taking their rubbish home with them or putting it in the bins or by the bins if those are full.”
Dublin City Council said it has increased the number of bins at beaches and have dedicated teams working to empty bins, pick-up litter and remove algae at strands. And “leave no trace behind” signage is prominent around beaches.
Green Party Cllr Tom Kivlehan said the council has worked hard and spent a large amount of money on rubbish collection over the past several years. These costs come out of citizen’s property taxes and Cllr Kivlehan doubts anyone wants their taxes increased.
“It’s a terrible situation when you put all the bins in place and all the notices are there and you’ve been educating kids for 20 to 30 years and people still litter,” said Cllr Kivlehan. “There is a section of people that think that it’s the council’s job to pick up every bit of rubbish. People must take responsibility for their actions.”
Councillors are very conscious about keeping beaches clean. Cllr Kivlehan cited Dún Laoghaire’s 5 out of 40 ranking nationally in the Anti-Litter League in the Irish Business Against Litter 2021 study.
“The councils are doing what they can do,” said Ms Donnelly. “The reason we do what we do is because of climate change but also to protect marine life. We have a massive seal colony on our doorstep.”
If left uncollected, trash washes into the ocean, where it harms birds and marine animals like the seals native to Irish waters.
Volunteers try to collect rubbish before it enters the sea, but Ms Donnelly said they avoid some beaches, like Sandycove, during busy periods. Last year, items were thrown at volunteers while they tried to clean the beach.
“Sandycove can be a bit edgy because it’s a popular beach to go to and a lot of young guys go down there, drink and get cross,” said Ms Donnelly. “We now clean late at night or early in the morning when it’s not busy.”
While the West Coast is known for its fishing trawler pollution, the East Coast is littered with human pollution.
“Every kid in the country has been educated through Green-Schools and we just need to reinforce that education. And we probably need a national public awareness campaign on littering as well,” said Cllr Donnelly.
During beach clean-ups, people often approach Flossie volunteers and compliment them on their amazing work. While Ms Donnelly admits that it’s lovely to hear such sentiments, she would also like people to bend over and collect a piece of trash.
On July 31st, Flossie and The Beach Cleaners hold “The Big Weigh In,” a national event where counties clean on the same day and at the same time to see how much they can collect. Last year, volunteers collected just under four tonnes of garbage.
To find out more, https://www.i-vol.ie/volunteer-opportunity/?ID=a004G00000oAfzZ