Plast Off Beach Clean 2024 involved two separate locations on Anglesey this year – staff, volunteers and members of the public turned out in their masses to Porth Trecastell and Trearddur Bay to help clear up the coastline.  

At Porth Trecastell, we had our young volunteers from the Ocean Rescue Champions and Stand For Nature Wales Youth Forum all helping to run the event. Here is a short write up of the day by Anna Williams - Ocean Rescue Champions Mentor (age 16): 

"Plast Off 2024 was a really good way to start the new year by bringing lots of people together to do something good for the environment. 

There was a great turnout of people on the day, and everyone seemed very willing and happy to do their bit.  

My highlight of the day was talking to Rhun ap Iorwerth (Ynys Môn Senedd Member) and Llinos Medi (Leader of Ynys Môn Council). They arrived as the event started and were really eager to meet us all and help out. They were both really interested in what we were doing and asked me lots of questions, and they were more than happy to answer all of mine. We chatted about the importance of holding events such as Plast Off, the problems caused by rubbish on beaches, and how to stop it. We also spoke about nurdles, and how difficult it is to get rid of them from the environment due to their small size, as well as the danger they pose to wildlife due to the harmful chemicals they contain. I was very grateful that they attended the event and helped rid Porth Trecastell of its rubbish."

Meanwhile, at Trearddur Bay, NWWT colleagues as well as Project Nurdle partners gathered to host the event at that site and launch the new collaborative project focussing on pre-production microplastics called nurdles.  

Ellen Williams, Communications & Marketing Assistant and long-standing Môn Gwyrdd Youth Forum member was at this site for the event and has done a short write-up too: 

"Around 60 people turned up to Trearddur Bay, Anglesey to help us pick up litter for our Plast Off 2024 beach clean! It was fantastic to see so many people showing their support for wildlife and the community. Some of them may also have heard us speaking to ITV Wales about why keeping our coasts clean is so important. We brought along our trusty nurdle machines to help filter nurdles (tiny balls of pre-production plastic) from the sand and together with the Porth Trecastell team we managed to collect over 500kg of waste from the beach, mostly consisting of microplastics and rope. The litter was sorted into recyclables and non-recyclables – all in all a great success!"