What better way to beat the January blues than to wrap up warm and join in with a huge community event taking positive action for our planet?! Around 200 people turned up at Porth Trecastell, Anglesey for our Plast Off! 2023 Beach Clean, ... perhaps some of them heard us talking about it on BBC Radio Cymru or BBC Radio Wales that morning and it inspired their plans for the day!

As we had such a big turnout, we were able to send people further along the local coastline – we had people cleaning the coastline from Rhosneigr all the way down to Aberffraw, and it really was a much-needed effort from everyone.  The stormy weather from the south-west had brought in a huge amount of marine litter and an estimated 1,000kg of litter was collected on the day. Over 300kg was collected in bin bags and sorted into recyclables and non-recyclables, and the rest of the litter haul was made up of mostly fishing gear, including a huge fishing net that took several people to drag it up off the beach.

There were lots of young people from our Ocean Rescue Champions group and our Stand For Nature Wales Youth Forum on hand to help – from handing out litter-picking equipment and briefing members of the public to weighing the bags of rubbish as it was brought back to our base in Porth Trecastell car park.  Here is what our young people had to say about the day:

"I enjoyed the Plast Off as it was a great community event. Managing equipment and talking to people was really fun. I really enjoyed engaging with the community." - Jack

"I was amazed by the mountains of plastic collected from the beach and I really liked the hot drink van and opportunity the public had to sign up to NWWT. Overall it was an amazing experience to do something to improve my local environment." - Hazel 

"I had a great time at Plast Off this year! It was brilliant to see so many people enthusiastic about making a difference, and witnessing the huge amounts of rubbish we collectively took aware from our natural environment was both mind-opening and reassuring. Positive change is possible!" - Ellen

"It was a brilliant experience going to Plast Off! I felt like we were actually making a difference to our environment. Plus there was definitely a buzzing and hopeful atmosphere because everyone came together to do something to help the planet and so the atmosphere wasn’t all doom and gloom. But, of course, it was quite scary to see how much plastic and waste came off the beach. By looking at Porth Trecastell you would not believe how much plastic and waste we collected. However, if you come to one of these events I can guarantee that you will come away feeling that something has been done to help the planet. If we all work together like this more often, then I do believe that something will change.

My favourite part of the day was when Anna announced how much plastic and waste had been collected. Everyone looked so proud of each other. Anna also got to use a megaphone (which she has always wanted to use!)" - Catrin

"One of the highlights of the day was the production line that we created weighing all the rubbish, we all worked together and really enjoyed sorting all the bags and seeing how much litter people had brought in. It was upsetting to see how much rubbish there was on the beach, but it was really nice to see how many people came to help on the day to try to get rid of as much of it as possible."  - Anna