The Big Pick
In May/ June 2014 we undertook a very specific survey as part of an ongoing Catalyst project with the University of Exeter to map and measure the distribution and movement of marine litter in Whitsand Bay.
Having identified one small cove on Tregantle beach (just 25 metres wide) as a particular site for deposition of marine debris, we decided to try to remove every single piece of plastic from it, and then to sort, count and classify it.
Our plans proved a bit optimistic (it was impossible to remove everything), but the results were overwhelming – almost 600,000 individual pieces of plastic removed just from this tiny area!
