Beach Clean Champions: Four tonnes of litter removed in one day from the ‘north-east’s worst beach’

When it comes to organisations working to protect the environment, oil firms aren’t usually first to spring to mind.

But employees of Harbour Energy – formerly known as Premier Oil – haven’t let that stop them.

In just one day, 45 volunteers from the firm collected more than four tonnes of litter and marine rubbish from one of the north-east’s most polluted beaches.

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Working with the East Grampian Coastal Partnership (EGPC), the company tackled the notorious Cairnbulg Beach just along the coast from Fraserburgh.

“This is certainly one of the worst beaches in the north-east,” said Crawford Paris, EGCP’s beach litter officer, explaining that the long sandy bay provides ideal conditions for rubbish to build up.

“On the one side there is a long stretch of sand which is basically presented with a natural barrier here with the reef and then the man-made harbour.

“So we find that litter builds up and becomes what we call a sink site, where the litter just doesn’t move away again.”

The glamourous world of litter picking

Unlike many of the picturesque golden sandy beaches around the Moray coast, Cairnbulg isn’t the most Instagrammable spot.

The sand is mostly obscured by rocks and rotting seaweed, with an additional layer of litter scattered over the top.

This is not an easy beach to litter pick on, Crawford explains. Much of the rubbish is tangled in seaweed and caught under rocks.

But Harbour Energy weren’t put off.

“They said that they would be willing to tackle one of the worst beaches, so that’s what we did,” said Crawford.

“They went at it for about six hours, the whole day, working really hard.

“We also had the help of Fraserburgh harbour’s Bobcat (a small digger) which has a forklift on it.

“That was really essential as the amount of stuff here is just so heavy.”

Marine litter dominates the beach

In just one day the team collected 4.14 tonnes of rubbish.

Bottles, cans and disposable barbecues are common, but the big issue here is pollution coming directly from the fishing industry.

Due to the area’s proximity to both Fraserburgh and Peterhead harbours, fishing nets, buoys and miles and miles of rope are among the most common items littering the beach.

Blue rubber gloves are also dotted everywhere you look. “Fishermen just chuck them off the side of the boat when they are finished with them,” said Crawford.

Look closer and you’ll see brown gloves too. These aren’t any different, they’ve just been in the sea for longer.

“This is the first time we’ve done any beach cleaning,” said Paul Williams of Harbour Energy.

“If you look at the beach itself and the plastics that are on there, it’s just not right that in this day and age we have beaches that are polluted with plastic like this.

“So we’re trying to get a few guys out of the office to try and put something back into the community, and make things better for the communities where we live and work in on a daily basis.”

Beach litter vs a global pandemic

But thanks to the pandemic, it’s been a while since Harbour Energy visited the beach and litter is beginning to build up once more.

Rubbish tends to gather in the bottom of the bay for several weeks before a big storm whips it up and onto the beach. This means it can take several months of litter picking – and several storms – to begin to see a consistently clean beach.

“It is disheartening seeing it build up again,” said Crawford.

“When we were finished after that beach clean with Premier Oil (Harbour Energy), the beach was clean.

“We collected four tonnes that day. A month later we collected only a ton. You can imagine if we kept doing that, it would reduce and reduce and reduce.

“So hopefully if more businesses and more groups want to get involved we can really tackle this beach and make a big difference.”

Harbour Energy have been nominated as one of our Evening Express Beach Clean Champions.

Find out more about our Beach Clean Champions project and read about our other nominees below.