600 Discarded Bodyboards Litter West Country Beaches

Six hundred broken bodyboards have been collected from just three beaches in the south west highlighting the problem of the cheap polystyrene boards and the amount of waste they create.

The boards were removed from three beaches in August by Keep Britain Tidy’s BeachCare programme.

Neil Hembrow, BeachCare Officer, said: “The amount of these cheap broken polystyrene boards we find is incredible : 600 in August alone from a few beaches.”

“If we collected these UK wide we’d have a huge warehouse full. I’d encourage anyone visiting our beaches to buy a better quality board that will last a lot longer. Although better quality boards may cost more they will last 10 summer holidays rather than 10 minutes.”

“We’ve managed to find a recycling solution but usually these broken boards will end up in landfill. They are manufactured in China, shipped over 5000 miles, distributed to stores and surfed for 10 minutes before breaking and going to landfill. Shipped across the planet to end up in our landfill sites – It is such an incredible waste!”

The BeachCare programme has calculated that if over a summer season 200 boards were discarded on every one of the bathing water beaches across the south west, that would equate to over 28,000 boards filling up landfill sites.

Despite the waste the BeachCare programme has come up with some ingenious ways to recycle the boards including sending two hundred boards to a local dance theatre for under floor cushioning and this batch of 600 will be sent to a creative play centre in Bristol.