Coca-Cola Clean Coast Week 2016

Enjoy your beach, enjoy your beach clean!

6th – 15th May 2016

A call for new recruits to join the Island of Ireland’s Largest Coastal Clean Up

Almost 3,000 volunteers took to beaches around the country during Coca-Cola Clean Coast Week 2015 to remove a staggering 10 tonnes of marine litre from the coastline.

With a target to remove a further 11 tonnes from Irish beaches this year, Coca-Cola Clean Coast Week 2016 runs from 6 – 15th May and is calling on volunteers across the country to once again get involved in the numerous coastal clean-ups and events taking place throughout the week.

With the theme, ‘Enjoy Your Beach, Enjoy Your Beach Clean’, the 2016 awareness week is run by the Environmental Education Unit of An Taisce in partnership with Coca-Cola and Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful. Over 120 beach cleans are planned alongside more than 20 coastal celebration events across island of Ireland in celebration of the beautiful natural resource of the coastline and to raise awareness of the importance of keeping beaches clean from litter.

The United Nation Environmental Programme (UNEP) estimates that 8 million individual litter items enter the marine environment every day. Marine litter includes a range of materials which have been deliberately discarded, or accidentally lost on shore or at sea. It includes materials that are carried out to sea from land, rivers, drainage, sewerage systems and even by the wind.

Coca-Cola Clean Coast Week 2016 will host a range of fun and informative events with the aim of raising awareness of the importance of protecting our coastline. Coastal celebrations will range from beach fitness activities that incorporate clean-ups, to a seal release in partnership Seal Rescue Ireland at Curracloe Strand in Wexford, and talks on the role of marram grass planting in halting coastal erosion. Other events include National #2MinuteBeachClean Day, the launch of Love Your Coast photography competition, and Beat the Microbead Day.

In keeping with the theme, an inaugural open-air cinema event will also take place at Sandymount Strand in partnership with Happenings. The summer classic ‘Jaws’ will air at 9.30pm. The event will further raise awareness of the many ways communities can and should enjoy their coastline across the country. More information is available via the Happenings Facebook page.

Speaking about the initiative Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly said: "I am delighted to be associated with an Taisce’s coastal initiatives such as Clean Coasts. This Trojan effort, participated in by so many dedicated volunteers, harnesses the pride and ownership that individuals have for their shared maritime amenity. It provides an opportunity for people to empower themselves to protect and enhance their valued resource - to act as current custodians of a precious entity for the generations to come. It also helps to raise awareness of the broad environmental harm that litter causes and how important is to reduce, reuse and recycle to prevent litter from being generated in the first place."

Speaking at the launch Micheal John O’Mahony, An Taisce said: “We are expecting more than 100 beaches to be cleaned by thousands of volunteers during Coca-Cola Clean Coasts Week. Every piece of litter removed whether as part of a large beach clean or a #2MinuteBeachClean is one less item that will pollute our oceans or be ingested by marine life.”

Ciara Cashen, Public Affairs & Communications Manager, Coca-Cola HBC Ireland said, “We are very pleased to support Clean Coast Week once again this year, supporting the many fun and awareness-generating events taking place around the country."

“As a global company, Coca-Cola has proud sustainability credentials and it is a source of great pride for us that Coca-Cola HBC recently topped the Dow Jones World and Europe Sustainability Indices in the beverage category for a 2nd consecutive year. Our local business makes an important contribution to these results, with ambitious 2020 targets to reduce our impact on the environment, focussing on water, waste and energy usage. We are pleased that we are on track to deliver against our commitments, with some already achieved ahead of schedule.  

“Our partnership with Clean Coast is a further demonstration of our commitment to sustainability, and I would like to take the opportunity to encourage all community groups across the country to get involved in their local events and clean-ups, supporting the important goal of keeping our marine environment litter-free.”

While all events throughout Coca-Cola Clean Coast Week 2016 are free, some are ticketed; people are encouraged to check out the website for more details. www.cleancoasts.org. 

Clean Coasts Week Events