Pilton's Eco Club were successful in the PTFA bid for our own litter picking equipment. We put the equipment to good use on its first outing, by taking it to Croyde, where our Eco Club students worked with the Beach Ranger Team to clean the area of beach near Downend.
A lot of seaweed has recently washed in at Croyde and mixed up in it is a lot of ocean plastic from the sea bed. Some of this plastic has been in the sea for years, as our students proved by finding smarties tube lids with lowercase letters on that were pre-2005. Our students collected a lot of plastic in the time we were there, but sadly it was only a tiny percentage of the plastic tangled up in the seaweed.
We then had some refreshments at the Downend cafe where our students made some environmentally friendly choices by opting for drinks in cans (which are infinitely recyclable) as opposed to plastic bottles (which can only be recycled 1-3 times before the plastic degrades too much). They also chose to buy ice cream in a cone rather than in a tub or in plastic wrapper to limit any unnecessary waste.
Following the break, we explored the rock pools at the south side of the beach. The low tide conditions meant we saw a diverse range of creatures in the rock pools including gem and strawberry anemones, some honeycomb worm reefs, a hard to find sea hare..... and a few cheeky year 7s!
Thanks to Holly and her team of Ruda Beach Rangers for another great educational experience. If anyone wants to get involved with some beach cleans in the summer holidays, Earth Action North Devon are running some at Croyde and Woolacombe in July and August, see the following link for details: https://www.earthactionnorthdevon.org/community-cleans
