Hundreds of Donegal volunteers answered a Clean Coasts and National Spring Clean joint call-to-action to organise a clean-up to protect our ocean this June.
Irish environmental charity Clean Coasts joined forces with National Spring Clean, to provide communities around Ireland with free clean-up kits to host a clean-up during the week around World Ocean Day, last year.
World Ocean Day is celebrated annually on the 8th of June to highlight the important role the ocean has for life and the planet. This year, the focus will be on the 30×30 campaign: to create a healthy ocean with abundant wildlife and to stabilise the climate, it is critical that 30% of our planet’s lands, waters and ocean are protected by 2030.
Communities around Ireland have demonstrated their desire to be a part of a solution to help marine litter by taking part in beach cleaning and clean-up calls to action.
Statistics show that the number one cause of marine litter is litter dropped in towns and cities. Building on the success of the Spring Clean 22 campaign, which took place in April and saw 500,000 volunteers organising 5,600 clean-ups, the National Spring Clean programme is joining Clean Coasts this year in supporting these communities.
Sinéad McCoy, Coastal Communities Manager, said: “We were so overwhelmed with the support received from the public. In under 72 hours, over 230 clean-ups had already registered on the Clean Coasts website.
“Now, over 4,000 volunteers are set to take action for World Ocean Day by organising or joining a clean-up event around Ireland.”
Volunteers who didn’t manage to secure a clean-up kit can still take action by joining an existing clean-up, a list of which can be found on the Clean Coasts website.
In Donegal, 20 clean-ups are set to happen, which will see over 200 volunteers getting involved.
Clean Coasts collaborated with CARO, the Donegal County Council, National Parks and Wildlife Service and the local community in Drumnatinny, for the creation of a series of road signage aimed at raising awareness about the importance of sand dunes in the area and how to protect them.
All these events are happening in the context of a very busy few months for the organisation, which saw other initiatives to protect and learn more about the ocean being launched recently, including the launch of two marine biodiversity directories, the release of new Enjoy and Protect guides, marram grass planting events and more.
