Slim pickings for volunteer rubbish collectors at Vazon
EAGER cleaners headed to the beach, despite cold and damp conditions on Saturday morning, armed with buckets and litter pickers to collect rubbish from Vazon as part of this year’s Big Beach Clean event.
The Clean Earth Trust was hosting the local operation while Plastic Free Jersey organised a similar event in that island.
Clean-ups also took place in Sark and Alderney over the weekend.
About 30 people turned up at the Richmond end of Vazon, where CET project coordinator Olivia Bennett and beach clean coordinator Finlay Ward were handing out the necessary equipment.
While many headed towards the far end of the bay to see what they could find among the rocks, others kept to the sandy section.
A piece of foam pipe lagging, a knife sheath, a mini alcohol bottle and a disposable vape were among the items picked up by Danuta Trzcinska and Lauren Le Gallic, but overall they thought that the beach did not seem too bad.
‘We think it’s a very clean beach,’ said Mrs Trzcinska.
Miss Le Gallic said they both worked at the Co-op, from where a large group of staff had joined in the morning’s clean-up. It was her first time.
‘It’s probably more beneficial to do it in the summer when there are more people on the beach,’ she said.
Not far away, Mary Logan and Gary Le Page had found lots of small plastic beads.
‘It doesn’t seem to be that dirty today,’ said Mr Le Page.
‘There are a lot of cuttlefish,’ said Mrs Logan.
‘Sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish them when they’re really broken up.’
The Tak family – mum and dad Cynthia and Kevin with son Liam, 4 – found more rubbish on the grass above the beach than on it, with a pair of heavy duty rubber gloves among their haul.
‘This is the first time we’ve done one,’ said Mrs Tak.
‘We heard about it on Facebook.’
As well as a good opportunity to take dog Simba for a walk, she said it helped them teach Liam about cleaning up the environment, and they were thinking of taking part in the following day’s clean-up at Pembroke, too.
