Beaches

Beach toy recycling boxes

Goal/Aim of Activity:

Reduce the use of single use plastics and encourage the recycling of plastic beach toys and reduce the amount of plastic ending up in the marine environment and harming marine life.

To do this, 6 boxes have been made from reclaimed wooden pallets with the boxes being placed in different locations along our beaches to capture used and unwanted beach toys. 

Each box has a bright and eye catching sign on the back drop which tells people about the initiative and what they can leave in the box.

2 Minute Beach Clean / volunteer beach cleans

Goal/Aim of Activity:

We support the 2-minute beach clean campaign on North Tyneside’s beaches to actively encourage beach users to look after the beach environment and to undertake a small litter pick when they visit the beach. 

We facilitate these activities by providing the cleansing equipment and the 2 Minute Beach Clean stations at selected beach locations.

Alternatively, we have a stock of litter picking equipment which is available for volunteer groups to borrow for larger organised beach/coastal cleans.

Re use excess seaweed from the local beaches as a binding material and fertiliser to repair damage to our sand dunes.

Goal/Aim of Activity:

We reuse seaweed deposited on local beaches and causing a nuisance in an environmentally friendly way by mechanically cleaning it from the beaches every morning when there are heavy deposits.

The benefit of this process is the reduction of non-contaminated seaweeds going to landfill which is both unnecessary and costly to the local authority. 

The excess seaweed is reused to maintain or repair effects of tourism and coastal erosion damage to our sand dunes, the damage is sustained during the summer from visitor footfall and during the winter as a result of winter storms.

By reusing the seaweed, it remains in the coastal environment acting in a natural, all be it assisted manner, to help bind the windblown and manually deposited sand used to repair and rebuild the dunes.  As the seaweed decomposes it becomes a fertiliser encouraging quick and sustainable regrowth of the coastal grasses and subsequent repair of the sand dune structure.

Seaweed reintroduction

Goal/Aim of Activity:

To put the excess non contaminated nuisance seaweed back into the natural environment at set locations along the coastline rather than remove to the landfill site.

If the excess seaweed is not required to repair the damage to sand dunes it is collected by the mechanical beach cleaning machine after being checked for litter and other items of debris.  Once collected it is redeposited in locations where the coastal tidal movement and currents will redeposit the seaweed on the rocky foreshore used by local birds etc for foraging.

The reintroduction of the seaweed allows for the natural processes to continue and reduce the risk of sterilising the coastal environment by removing the natural resource.

Seal - litter project

Goal/Aim of Activity:

To remind residents and visitors to our beautiful coastline that they have a responsibility to dispose of their waste and recycling correctly and to highlight the detrimental impact litter can have on marine life.

We have produced a seal sculpture made from litter, collected from our local beaches, that has been presented in a 6ft Perspex box. The box is clearly labelled with information about litter and the harm it can cause to marine life.

The sculpture is moved along the coastline every two weeks to make sure that people visiting prominent places along our coastline get to see it.