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Volunteer's plea as beach litter left behind

Claudia RobinsonNorth East and Cumbria
News imageBBC Paul Granger, a man wearing a red waterproof jacket and black trousers, with his hands in his pockets, is standing next to a large public bin overflowing with rubbish, and several bags of litter on the ground next to it.BBC
Paul Granger says visitors should take their litter home

Visitors to a beach left behind "the worst" litter local residents said they had seen over the bank holiday weekend.

Paul Granger said rubbish left on Seaton Carew beach, near Hartlepool, had become an increasing problem during the school holidays and following the recent spell of hot weather.

He said he regularly picked up glass bottles from the beach because of the danger they posed to children, dogs and horses but on Tuesday morning he collected 44.

He said it was "an absolute mess", with rubbish strewn over the beach and council bins overflowing, and called on people to treat the beach "with respect".

Granger said visitors had also left disposable barbecues, towels, shoes, coats and buckets and spades.

He collected several bags full of rubbish, with other local residents doing the same.

News imagePaul Granger A council bin on a seafront promenade is overflowing with rubbish and dozens of carrier bags, also full of empty cans and bottles, and piled up next to it.Paul Granger
Paul Granger says the rubbish left on the bank holiday was the worst he had ever seen

He visits the beach to walk his dog every morning and said there was always a carrier bag there people could fill with rubbish.

"It's heartbreaking because you want the beach to be a tourist attraction but first impressions are going to put people off," he said.

He recalled another occasion where families had abandoned rubbish, including a nappy, after a day on the beach.

"You'd be the first to moan if you came to bring your kids to the beach and there's a nappy there," he said. "What's that teaching the kids?"

News imagePaul Granger A sand dune is littered with plastic bottles, cans and other discarded rubbish.Paul Granger
The dunes at Seaton Carew were also covered in rubbish following the bank holiday weekend

Granger said the beach was not just for people to enjoy and visitors needed to consider wildlife too.

"You've got the little terns here at the moment. They've come thousands of miles to come to Seaton, you know what I mean?

"Further along the dunes, you've got the sand martins, you get sometimes dolphins. I've even seen a couple of whales."

Granger praised council workers who were cleaning the beach and dunes, saying they had "reacted" to the scale of the problem.

But he urged visitors to take more responsibility for their waste.

"If you can be bothered to bring it down, just be bothered to take it home," he said. "Treat it with a bit of respect."

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