Saving our seas

An intrepid team of beach cleaners devoted a recent Sunday to battling the scourge of discarded plastic blighting one of their favourite spots, the beautiful five-mile stretch of golden sand known as Filey Beach, near Scarborough.

Alyson Broomhead, Tadcaster delivery office manager, organised the beach cleaning trip after being moved by a documentary she saw about the more than eight million tonnes of plastic that ends up going into the oceans every year.

‘A few weeks ago there was a programme on the telly about plastic and the amount of damage it does to sea life,’ said Alyson. ‘My team and I all watched it and got talking about it the following day.

‘That basically sowed the seed of us doing something together as a team to help in a small but positive way. We started by putting a print out on all the fittings in the office to show what we needed to recycle. We then bought a big black bin to collect all our plastic, and now one of the team takes the recycling to a place in York where the plastic is dealt with accordingly.’

The team at Tadcaster then decided to take their recycling campaign a step further and organise a beach clean.

‘We were discussing it one morning when one of our call and collect customers came in,’ said Alyson. ‘He owns a printing firm and he offered to print us some T-shirts for free! Then we thought, why not try and make the campaign national by getting other offices to take part and in doing so, build morale and make a difference!’

The team set off for the 50-mile plus trip to a blustery Filey early one Sunday morning. ‘We arrived mid-morning and quickly got stuck in,’ said Alyson. ‘We had a great time as a team, even though the weather was a little unpredictable.

‘There were plenty of laughs and it was a great team effort. Morale in the office the next morning was really high. My team are keen to pass this idea on with the hope that more colleagues can do their bit for the environment. It’s also a great team-building idea.’