Image for 1,000 volunteers help Brighton beach’s post-Pride clean up

1,000 volunteers help Brighton beach’s post-Pride clean up

The Big Pride Beach Clean saw more than two tonnes of waste collected from Brighton beach and manually sorted by volunteers

Words by Lucy Douglas August 7, 2019
Environment Lifestyle UK

The Big Pride Beach Clean saw more than two tonnes of waste collected from Brighton beach and manually sorted by volunteers

More than 1,000 volunteers supported a community initiative in Brighton on Sunday, to clean the city’s beach of litter following its annual Pride celebrations.

The Big Pride Beach Clean saw more than two tonnes of waste collected from two separate 1km stretches of Brighton Beach on Sunday 4 August, then manually sorted by volunteers to maximise the recycling rate.

The result was around 1.5 tonnes of plastics, metal and glass litter was sent off for recycling; the group was able to recycle more plastics than is usually possible locally, by collaborating with London-based TerraCycle UK. The remaining half a tonne of unrecyclable litter was sent to be incinerated at Veolia’s Energy from Waste facility in Newhaven.

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The group behind the initiative, Ocean’s 8 Brighton, said they were inspired by the Hollywood film about women with common expertise working together to achieve something. “Our expertise is in environmental issues and we want to use this collaboration to deliver initiatives which engage people. The Big Pride Beach Clean is an excellent example of that,” said Melanie Rees, founder of the group and creative director of The Brighton Green Centre.

Pride organisers also got behind the campaign and encouraged attendees to its city-wide celebrations to join the Pride Big Beach Clean via its website. “In the spirit of collaboration we wanted to support a collective approach to maintaining a cleaner, more sustainable city,” said Paul Kemp, managing director of Brighton and Hove Pride CIC.

“Thanks to the hard work of Oceans 8 Brighton and over 1,000 volunteers registered for the Big Pride Beach Clean, all the rubbish was collected and sorted for recycling in just a few hours leaving the beach ready for the weekend visitors to the city.

Image: Alex Bamford

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