How charges for single use plastic bags have helped clear up Britain's beaches

A four-fifths drop in carrier bags has been recorded on beaches in the past decade, campaigners said as they urged more action to tackle litter affecting the seas and coasts.

The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) said its beach clean programme has recorded an average drop of 80 per cent in the number of plastic bags found per 100 metres of beach over the last 10 years, as charges for single use carrier bags have helped reduce their use.

The charity is also hoping to see a reduction in litter such as single use plastic cutlery, polystyrene cups, balloon sticks and food containers on beaches after bans in England, Wales and Scotland over the past two years.

Miles of golden sand stretch along the North Sea coast from Dornoch Point, past Embo beach to the mouth of Loch Fleet National Nature Reserve

But nine out of 10 beach litter items are plastic, and drinks-related litter, such as bottles, cans and lids, were found on 97 per cent of UK beaches during the clean-ups last year, the data from the beach cleans show.

So the MCS is calling for the new Government to press ahead with an all-inclusive “deposit return scheme”, with charges on drinks containers that are refunded when they are returned for recycling.

The charity carries out beach-cleaning initiatives all year, but runs the Great British Beach Clean each September, with the surveys from volunteers contributing a third of the data it gathers on litter on beaches.

The MCS launched the build-up to this year’s Great British Beach Clean with an event on Brighton Beach, where volunteers and campaigners joined comedian, presenter and MCS ambassador Zoe Lyons for a litter-picking survey.

The survey, which has been running since 1994, involves volunteers recording all litter they find within a 100-metre stretch of beach.

Even on the beach at Brighton, which is regularly cleaned, volunteers were picking up rubbish including drinks lids and bottle caps, plastic packaging, tissues and clothing.

Lyons, who lives in Hove, said she was “so lucky to live by the sea” and enjoyed the beach every day, but said she was aware of how it was “used and misused” every day.

The comedian, who has taken part in a number of beach cleans, said people could have an impact by getting involved.

“It is a very tiny act of making a positive environmental impact, it’s a very small thing that hopefully, visually, you can see it makes an impact.

“But also I think in a world where people just feel overwhelmed by a lot of it, there’s a lot of bad news, a lot of environmental doom and gloom, to the point where people get environmental fatigue.

“So just doing a small act just breaks through that feeling of hopelessness,” she said.

Lizzie Price, UK beachwatch manager at the MCS, said part of the value of the data gathered by beach cleans is it can highlight “hotspots” of rubbish, such as period products, wet wipes and cotton bud sticks that show where untreated sewage pollution is a particular problem, and help drive action.

More than 100 beach cleans have already been organised to take place across the UK during the Great British Beach Clean, from Bude in Cornwall to Aikerness in the Orkney Islands.