What Rowena Castillo-Nicholls found on West Portholland beach

A tangle of blue fishing line wedged between the rocks. A shard of red plastic half buried in wet sand. Small things, and easy to walk past.

Rowena Castillo-Nicholls and Rob Nicholls did not walk past them. The pair spent their time at West Portholland Beach picking up litter as part of the Marine Conservation Society‘s Great British Beach Clean.

📷Some of the rubbish picked up at West Portholland Beach

What they picked up at West Portholland

Rowena is the founder and chair of Connect with Nature with Rowena. She and Rob came away with loads of rubbish, all of it harmful to wildlife and the environment.

Their haul included:

• Caps and lids
• Fishing lines
• Fishing nets
• Foams and polystyrene
• Plastic fragments

And there were other bits besides.

📷Some of the rubbish picked up at West Portholland Beach

Why the litter gets counted

The Great British Beach Clean is a week-long citizen science event. It combines beach cleaning with a litter survey, so what gets picked up also gets recorded.

Those records have a job to do. They help track where waste is coming from and support local conservation work. They feed into the International Clean-up data. And they power campaigns for policy changes to protect marine life.

📷Snakelocks Sea Anemone

Then came the rockpools

With the beach clean done, Rowena and Rob turned to the rockpools, and had a great time doing it. Among the things they photographed was a Snakelocks Sea Anemone, its green tentacles tipped with purple.

You can find out more about Connect with Nature with Rowena on its website.

📷Some of the rubbish picked up at West Portholland Beach

📷Some of the rubbish picked up at West Portholland Beach

📷Rowena Castillo-Nicholls at West Portholland Beach