UK: 40% less plastic bags in beach litter

For the September 2016 Great British Beach Clean, volunteers cleaned beaches around the UK, recording the litter they found. A huge amount of rubbish was picked up - 268,384 individual pieces, although this is a little lower than last year.
The number of plastic bags found has almost halved in a year. The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) says that they think that’s down to the charge at the checkout, which is now in place across the whole UK. There was an astonishing rise in the amount of balloon related litter, up over 50% on 2015. There were more drinks containers, bottle caps and lids, too – up more than 4% on the previous year (News Item MCS, 22 November 2016).
Click here for the news item.
Click here for the report (2.67 MB).
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