Leitrim Clean Coasts volunteer shows impact of plastic on our coast

Leitrim-based Clean Coasts volunteer Martina Healy (AKA Leitrim litter picker) is one of the biggest supporters of the #2minutebeachclean campaign in Ireland and has been picking up litter on her walks for a long time.

Two years ago, she stepped up the pace and created a social media account, Leitrim Litter Picker, to show the amount of plastic that can be collected along our coast in only two minutes everyday.

On her daily clean-ups, Martina finds lots of plastic bottles, food wrappers and packaging, coffee cups, plastic bags and a lot of other plastic items. These plastic items can harm marine life, as they can get entangled in plastic items or ingest them.

Recent statistics show that Ireland is the number one plastic waste producer in the European Union, with 54kg of plastic waste per person produced each year, as well as being the country with the fourth lowest recycling rate.

Sinead McCoy, Clean Coasts said: “We once again are asking people to stop and think how they are using plastic and to educate themselves about plastic and its impact. If we continue with the use of plastic as a single use item, we will continue to create immense waste issues and high demands on our natural environment.

“We need now more than ever before to discover ways to move away from the overly convenient individually packaged lifestyle we have adopted and find a way to break up with single use plastic.”

Sinead continued to say, “We realise it can be difficult to make the break from single use, so for anybody starting the journey towards new, reusable, long-lasting loves, we have tips and hints on our website to get you started.”