Shocking images of plastic aftermath

Visitors to a beach in Cornwall have been “left speechless” by the amount of plastic washed up in recent storms.

While walking along Whitsand Bay in Cornwall, Amy Gosney and Harry Dennis, who run the social enterprise Waterhaul, said they found “absolutely insane amounts of plastic”, according to the BBC.

Storm Ciara and Storm Dennis have battered the UK in the past few weeks.

“It’s absolutely heartbreaking to see our marine environment looking like this,” says Amy. “The whole beach was multicoloured with so many microplastics.

“There were billions of small plastic pellets, broken down pieces of plastic, cotton bud sticks, and bio-beads.”

Bio-beads are small pieces of plastic used to filter waste at sewage treatment plants.

Hugo Tagholm, CEO of Surfers Against Sewage, says more and more plastic pollution is being swept in after storms.

“We’re lucky in the South West, because we’ve got an army of beach clean volunteers, but the real solution lies further up the chain,” he says.

“We need to call on manufacturers and the government to stop plastic getting into our oceans in the first place.

“The most important part of this is ensuring pointless plastics aren’t produced,” he adds.

Cornwall Council says plastic pollution is “unsightly, a danger to wildlife, and in particular to sea life” and that it is working with community groups to “raise awareness of the need to drastically cut our consumption of single-use and non-essential plastics”.