On Saturday the 15th of December, environmental charity Plastic Free Seas Worldwide brought together 75 volunteers to clean up the beach in Fuengirola. During the event, the volunteers collected a staggering 400 kilogrammes of rubbish in just one hour.
Specsavers Opticas Fuengirola sponsored the event as part of their commitment to reducing plastic, and minimising their impact on the environment, after stopping the use of plastic bags in all eight stores earlier this year; a change which will stop approximately 7,000 plastic bags being produced and distributed. This sponsorship is the latest environmental initiative from global optical chain Specsavers Opticas. They joined the charity, the volunteers, the Mayor of Fuengirola, Ana María Mula Redruello, the Councillor for Beaches, José Sanchez, and the Councillor for the Environment, María Jesús Pascual from the Fuengirola Town Hall, for the largest beach clean up of the year.
We have become more and more conscious of the impact that plastic can have on the environment and wanted to make a change. So we stopped using plastic bags in September and have committed to sponsor Plastic Free Seas Worldwide with their beach cleaning activities and educational work to both stop plastics at source and deal with them before they cause harm to the environment.
– Amrik Sappal, Director of Specsavers Opticas Fuengirola to Shaw Marketing Services
Specsavers Opticas also has an ‘earth-conscious’ range of glasses called Eco. Each frame is constructed from recycled or biodegradable acetate in order to have less impact on the environment. For more information visit Specsavers Ópticas.
Plastic Free Seas Worldwide was originally created by founder Craig Webb to increase awareness about the amount of plastic being dumped in to our seas every year. Approximately one truckload of plastic is dumped into the sea every minute, equating to 8 million tonnes a year.
Our mission is to bring communities together, educate our youth and start making a difference to the carnage that we are subjecting our natural world to. This is a man-made problem and innocent mammals, fish, and sea birds are paying the ultimate price. This year we have organised 12 beach clean ups, collecting over 5 tonnes of rubbish from beaches on the Costa del Sol, and visited schools to educate the younger generation on the importance of minimising plastic use and disposing of it carefully. Thanks to everyone who has supported all our activities in 2018, we look forward to many more events in 2019.
– Co-founder of Plastic Free Seas Worldwide Natasha Wegloop to Shaw Marketing Services
Plastic Free Seas Worldwide held its first beach clean in 2017 at Torrenueva; fifteen volunteers attended and 120 kilogrammes of plastic were collected. After a few months, Plastic Free Seas had over 50 volunteers at every event. Their biggest beach clean to date saw 117 volunteers remove over half a tonne of plastic from Cabopino Port. In October 2018, Plastic Free Seas recorded, so far, that 7,500 pounds of plastic had been removed due to their collective beach cleans.
Watch this space, your favourite Spectrum FM Facebook page, and Plastic Free Seas Worldwide for more updates and information about future beach cleans and events.
Thank you and cheers to a Plastic Free 2019 to all our eco-warriors from Spectrum FM’s Pick Up 3, Plastic Free Seas Worldwide, Olivia’s La Cala, and Specsavers Óptica!
