Surfers and upset Mermaids take a tearful message to the British Plastic Federation

Campaigners from Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), today actioned a British Plastics Federation's (BPF) seminar in London. We called on delegates attending a BPF biopolymer and biodegradable plastics seminar to urgently address the problems of plastics littering UK beaches.

Bringing the beach, complete with plastic tideline, to London, SAS campaigners and mermaids presented Peter Davis, Director General of the BPF with a 500ml plastic bottle filled with 10,000 plastic pellets, known as 'mermaid's tears'. The pellets were collected from just 1 UK beach (Porthtowan, Cornwall) but are representative of a growing tide of mermaid's tears littering the UK's coastline. SAS called on all delegates at the biopolymer seminar to urgently tighten industry practices ensuring plastic, especially these 'mermaid's tears' don't end up on the beach.

Plastics eclipse every other type of litter on UK beaches by far. The UK uses 5 million tones of plastic per year, with an estimated 10% of that plastic being discarded at sea. Estimates for plastic degradation in the sea is between 450 -1000 years (although plastic never fully breaks down). SAS campaigners are finding an ever-increasing amount of plastics on beach cleans, with Porthtowan, SAS's adopted beach, blighted by a plethora of plastic pellets known as 'mermaid's tears'.

These 'mermaids' tears' are melted down and used to produce plastic products. However, 'mermaid's tears' end up on our beaches because plastic manufacturers industrial practices are not taking this problem seriously. Once in the marine environment these 'mermaids tears' can absorb PCBs and DDEs in concentrations up to a million times greater than the surrounding seawater. SAS have called on the BPF, who represent 80% of the UK plastic industry, to promote the environmentally responsible storage, transportation and usage of these 'mermaid's tears'. In particular SAS would like to see a kinder, lower impact alternatives developed that would ultimately reduce its impact on the natural environment.

Andy Cummins, SAS Campaigns Officer says: "You don't have to look hard to find items of plastic on every beach in the UK. We need the British Plastic Federation to tighten up their working practices to ensure plastics don't escape into the marine environment and help put a smile back on mermaid's faces".

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