Wednesday 1st January 2020
“Hello Sophie,” a passing driver called out. “Are you still collecting plastic?”
“My first beach clean of the year!”
I managed 150 beach or riverside litter collections last year. My aim is to make it 200 for 2020. As someone wrote to ask why I stopped my last‘Diary of a lone litter-picker’ back in April, I thought I’d start it up again. It may not be that consistent but I am fuelled by rage. The first thing I picked up toady was a deflated helium balloon found on the road to the Solent shore. Isn’t helium a finite resource? Don’t we need it for medical procedures?
I came across two ‘disposable’ barbecues lying abandoned on the beach.
“Do you think someone will return for these?” I asked the only other person about on New Year’s Day.
“Doubt it.”
I added the aluminium trays to the purple bucket I use to collect litter. Only one drinks can graced it’s depths today but I stopped repeatedly to pick up cotton bud stalks along with small pieces of PVC fishing twine and red, white or blue micro- plastics washed up by winter tides.
A runner ran past. Will all this bending keep me fit, I wonder. There was a little polystyrene and four boxes of fireworks left beside the municipal bin.
It was a mild but misty morning. I walked along with my dog listening to cries of seabirds. How many of them have plastic in their gullets?
On returning home, I looked up the Marine Conservation Society and see from their 2019 report that they have a number of different classifications for items such as ‘Sewage related debris’. They need more data to campaign and change Government policies. I decide to join.
Thursday 2nd January
It was windy with rain threatening, so I decided to take my dog down a lane running alongside the river marking the boundary of the Lymington Reedbeds Nature Reserve in the New forest National Park. This is just above the high tide level and prone to flooding. I cleaned the area two months ago. In about 500 yards I collected:
3 x glass booze bottles, 3 x booze cans, 3 x drink cans, 7 x plastic drinks bottles, 5 x cigarette packets and 30 x crisp/sweet wrappers. This weighed 3kgs. Apart from one sandwich the contents of the packaging could not be described as health-giving.
I had to leave a discarded boiler, a rusting wheelbarrow, a length of soggy carpet and a number of bottles lying out of my reach. This fly-tipping has languished in the ditches here for sometime but I need to commandeer help and a suitable vehicle.
Friday 3rd January
A lovely sunny day when I cleared litter from the rest of the lane running along the river. What do people expect will happen to the cans and plastic flung into the reserve? One tin was dated 2011. Four of the wrappers had been neatly knotted before being chucked in the ditch. From the evidence collected, I strongly suspect their owner to be drink-driving on his or her way to work every day.
Sadly, I will need to return with a long-poled grabber for plastic bottles chucked deep into the brambles. I need a vehicle to collect a large car part, a plastic tub and a number of ‘Bags for Life’ stuffed with litter lying abandoned near the footpath to the pub. It could be worse. I found nine different items of stolen property along this lane last year – iPhones, lap tops, two empty jewellery boxes and a handbag in which a mouse had made its nest.
It was my friend’s birthday, so I took her a card, walking along the estuary with a bucket to collect the inevitable litter. What should I do with parts that have obviously fallen off cars? I hung one up in case its grateful owner comes along along. I also hung a soggy sweatshirt from the railing, although I doubt if it will be claimed.
I was down by the water, fishing out plastic bottles when a car passed belching clouds of choking white smoke. After extracting an old carry-mat from the reeds I found two puzzled men looking under the bonnet of their car. Their glamorous passenger stood shivering by the estuary. I pointed them in the direction of the local garage but feel I should have left the mat in case they needed it.
Saturday 4th January
In an effort to record data, I sort yesterday’s litter into re-cyling bags full of tins and plastic bottles. Glass bottles go in an outside sink for washing, wrappers into my domestic rubbish bags. They should go into Council litter bins or litter bags.
I returned to the Solent and began collecting plastic deposited by winter tides. When I first moved to this area fifteen years ago, the foreshore was multi-coloured with debris. The coast now looks clean at first glance but I picked up about 200 tiny pieces of fishing twine and micro-plastics in a few hundred yards. There were quite a few spent shot-gun cartridges left by wild-fowlers. I found a baby’s dummy and a used cigarette lighter. There is often one. New Forest ponies roam here and yet I have retrieved buckets of broken glass in the past and find a jagged bottle base that could easily lame a horse. It has obviously been there for years.
Sunday 5th January
A stereo speaker was washed up on the shore this afternoon. I wouldn’t want to hit one at sea. I spied a Corona bottle, the bobbly ‘every bubble’s passed its FIZZical!’ type that we yearned for as children in the 1960s. How old would it be? 50 years-old? Could I still redeem the deposit? Hopefully soon.
Monday 6th January
I walked back from town, unable to pass litter lying on the causeway over the Lymington River. I had no bucket with me but where there is rubbish there is usually something you can use as a container. I found a broken umbrella, filling its folds with plastic cup lids, bottle tops, and assorted trash including a Pepsi Cola tin that would have otherwise rolled into the tidal river.
Tuesday 7th January
I should have rushed out early when we had two minutes of sunshine but I was distracted and the rain set in. Instead, I read through litter-picking posts on Facebook, absorbing information on bottle return schemes and the call for an end to single use plastics. I reckon we need to support anyone who is doing anything before the world is swamped in rubbish and the food chain poisoned. Do let me know what you are doing in the comments box below.
For a list of things found on Solent Beachcleans last year, please click here
Sophie Neville 
Your place in heaven is assured! Well done – keep going
It is undeserved!
It is horrifying to realise how much is dumped in holiday areas and also comes in from the sea. Here in Surrey we do seem to be more responsible as I don’t pick up much except in the local park after school when young munchers leave the debris behind. Complaints to the local Headmaster has not had effect. My lone effort is to keep the plastic from our food packets and take it for incineration at the Council recycling centre. It keeps it out of the sea at least.
Well done. Perhaps the school could take the pupils to pick up litter in the park during Keep Britiain Tidy’s #GreatBritishSpringClean when they have programmes designed for schools. Once the kids start collecting litter they are much less likely to throw it. You can give a prize to the person who finds the oldest piece, which has them reaching into the hedges. They might find a can or packet 30 or 40 years old.
Some friends did the same in my old sailing area
Cheers Warren
It is worrying, to think of all the creatures of the sea and air flying around with bits of plastic in their systems. Why does the world still insist on using single-use plastics? We have a lot to answer for.
It’s horrific. Do write to your supermarket asking them to reduce plastic packaging.
I will, I promise.