Litter pick on World Oceans Day
Sellafield Ltd employees, contracting and community colleagues carried out a litter pick on Seascale beach to mark World Oceans Day 2018.
Volunteers picking up litter on Seascale beach.
A group of around 30 employees, collected litter on Seascale beach to help raise awareness of the impact that plastics and other materials have on our environment.
The event marked the end of the week of activities in support of the international ‘beat plastic pollution’ campaign, kicked off on World Environment Day (5 June).
Seascale residents also got involved, with Seascale Councillor, David Moore, bringing along his quad bike to help transport the litter to a nearby skip.
Councilor Moore said:
It’s really impressive that Sellafield employees have arranged to help pick litter from the beach, and the parish really appreciate it. It was great to go along and help those who have taken time out of their day to help their local community.
Many Sellafield Ltd contractors helped out on the day by providing the necessary equipment. Mitie provided the bin bags, bin bag hoops and littler pickers whilst Arco provided the gloves. Neales Waste also offered to dispose of the waste at no charge.
The event was organised by Sellafield Ltd environmental graduate, Calum Jack. He said:
The company is becoming a fully-fledged decommissioning site, so clean-up is what we do. As individuals there are things we can to every day to help protect our environment.
As a direct result of watching the recent Blue Planet II programme showing a whale trying to eat a plastic bucket, I have made numerous changes on a personal level to my behaviours, like refusing to buy food and products with plastic packaging.
It really hit home and prompted me to act – this litter pick up from the beach is an extension of what we can all do ourselves in our personal lives and sends out the right messages that people should and do care about their environment.
Seascale has recently installed a state of the art play area for their residents, and to coincide with the beach litter pick a number of residents will be taking advantage of the skip provided, by disposing grass clippings from the play area, saving the village disposal costs on this occasion.
A group of Sellafield Ltd apprentices also carried out a litter-pick at North Side, Workington to fill up a recycling `polar bear’. The polar bear was made from litter by apprentices to mark last year’s World Environment Day. It now resides at St Patrick’s Infant School in Workington to store plastics that can be recycled all year round.