On Sunday, some 2,500 volunteers cleaned the North sea beaches of 5.3 tonnes of rubbish. This was part of the eighth Eneco Clean Beach Cup.
This is less than last year’s total when no less than 7.1 tonnes of rubbish were collected.
Volunteers from Eneco Clean Beach Cup and the members of 16 local surf clubs took part on Sunday on the annual local “clean-up” operation on the Belgian coast beaches. They tracked down rubbish from Bray-Dunes in France to Cadzand in the Netherlands. In total, 5.3 tonnes of rubbish were collected yesterday.
The Secretary of State for the North Sea, Philippe De Backer (Open Vld) and the federal Minister for Energy, Marie Christine Marghem (MR), also rolled up their sleeves for the occasion.
The organiser of the Eneco Clean Beach Cup, Sven Fransen, laments, “A million sea birds and 100,000 tortoises die every year owing to plastic waste landing in the oceans.”
He went on, “Measures are currently on the table to reverse the trend but they alone are insufficient. This is the reason why we continue to raise the alarm. By cleaning the beaches, we can give greater visibility to the scale of the phenomenon. I am extremely pleased that so many people have turned out today.”
The Secretary of State, Philippe De Backer, stated, “Water pollution begins with the earth. If we do nothing, by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in our seas and oceans. We should, therefore, consider urgently how to reduce this enormous mountain of waste by adopting a more ecological lifestyle.”
