Great work at White Bay by the Ballynamona Clean Coasts Group.

Clean Coasts Ballynamona, a team awarded the title of Cork County Council Group of the Year in 2019, are still doing Trojan work when it comes to cleaning up Cork’s beaches.

They were out again on Sunday in East Cork, and posted pictures on social media detailing the kind of waste that they’re tasked with clearing.

“We carried out a beach clean on #WhiteBay yesterday, close to White Gate/Aghada. The beach there is beautiful, but is sadly marred with lots of marine plastics, many of which are very old,” the group said.

‘There is also sewage related litter, and problems arising from anti-social behaviour as there is much broken glass there from smashed drinks bottles. The going can be slow, owing to the numerous pieces of micro plastics.”

Some curiosities were discovered, including a bottle of Sanilav which had been there over 22 years at least, and perhaps longer.

Found on this morning’s beach clean in #WhiteBay by @JessDLeahy.

Anyone any idea how old this @jeyesuk Sanilav bottle might be? If it’s of Irish origin, the “1p off” means it’s more than 20 odd years. Looks 1980s but that’s a wild guess.

Anyone? @LegoLostAtSea @2minbeachclean pic.twitter.com/FZAtzTBb6A

— Clean Coasts Ballynamona (@Ballynamona) June 27, 2021

Other photos posted by the group show the extent of the rubbish in the area, including deep in the soil. They were assisted by their John Deere Gator vehicle, which was funded to the tune of around €25,000 back in April by the  Fisheries Local Action Group.

In a post on their Twitter, the team specified that it is the small plastics and bits of broken glass that pose the biggest challenge, saying: “Let us not kid ourselves. This is Cork. Anyone can pick the big items, it’s this small stuff that causes the problems.”

Ballynamona Clean Coasts are the country’s largest beach cleaning operation with 300 members. The group cleans and maintains 40kms of coastline in Cork, roughly 1.5% of Ireland’s total coastline.