Clothing, industrial plastic and children’s toys were among the items recently collected at Claycastle Beach, Youghal, by employees at EirGrid, the developer and operator of the national electricity grid.
A group of volunteers collected and disposed of 22kg of rubbish from Claycastle Beach as part of An Taisce’s Clean Coasts programme.
The rubbish collected included plastic bottles, cigarette butts and bags of dog faeces.
Other items found included flip-flops, pieces of tyres, and fishing materials, including rope.
The clean-up was in line with one of the pillars of EirGrid’s Sustainability Strategy, ‘Being a Responsible Business’, and worked towards two themes of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals – ‘Life Below Water’ and ‘Life on Land’.
Clean-ups make an important contribution towards preventing litter from being washed towards the sea, safeguarding the health of our marine life.
“At EirGrid, we are continuously working to embed sustainable and responsible business practices across our day-to-day operations, and events like this show how everyone can make a real difference when it comes to protecting our coastlines,” Ronan Lynch, EirGrid’s Fisheries Liaison Officer, and organiser of the clean-up, said.
“We are delighted to have made a contribution to reducing local pollution and creating a cleaner environment on Cork’s coast.”
EirGrid will log the data from this beach clean through Clean Coasts Ireland.
Clean Coasts’ Big Beach Clean encourages communities and volunteers around the country to remove litter from Irish coastal areas.
Last year, over 400 registered clean ups took place across Ireland, removing over 46 tonnes of marine litter.
EirGrid’s Clean Coasts group help a similar event on Claycastle Beach in June to mark World Ocean Day.
