Huge rise in bathroom rubbish on UK beaches | Environment

Read article : Huge rise in bathroom rubbish on UK beaches | Environment

The amount of bathroom rubbish spread over Britain's shoreline has risen by an average of 40% in the past year, a survey has found.

Cotton buds, condoms, sanitary towels and tampon applicators were among the items recovered at the Marine Conservation Society's Beachwatch Big Weekend last September. Overall there was a 6% increase in average litter levels on Britain's beaches compared with a similar survey in 2010.

Marine Conservation Society beachwatch officer, Lauren Davis, urged people to stop using their toilet as a "wet bin". She said: "[Bathroom rubbish] is being flushed away with an 'out of sight, out of mind' perception. But sewerage networks and waste water treatment works are not designed to remove these sort of items and, unfortunately, more and more are ending up in our rivers and beaches."

Almost 5,000 volunteers cleaned 376 beaches across the UK for the Big Weekend, covering a total of 167km. Over 330,000 items of litter were collected; 7% of it was bathroom waste, which included almost 16,000 cotton buds.

Only the north-west of the UK and Northern Ireland saw a decrease in the amount of bathroom rubbish found on beaches compared with the previous year. The largest increases were in the north-east, where levels tripled, and Wales, where they doubled.

UK water companies backed the Marine Conservation Society's push for people to stop flushing rubbish. Edmund Bramley, Yorkshire Water's environmental regulation manager, said: "We support the Marine Conservation Society's call for people to dispose of bathroom waste responsibly, by placing it in the bin, rather than flushing it down the toilet. By flushing things like baby wipes, cotton buds or nappies down toilets, people can end up causing damage both to their homes and the environment."

Hugo Tagholm, director of the clean water campaign Surfers Against Sewage, said: "We of course see this first-hand on lots of beaches around the UK, and it's unfortunately no huge surprise to us. It's worrying to see the continuing trend of increasing litter on our coastline, and it's something we're actively tackling with our nationwide supporter and membership base."