Mayo's Keep Our Beaches Clean win Clean Coasts award

THE work of Mayo Clean Coasts volunteers has been celebrated at the Ocean Hero Awards.

Louisburgh-based Keep Our Beaches Clean picked up the Group of the Year Award at the ceremony in Dublin, which recognised the invaluable contribution volunteers, groups and communities have made towards conserving our spectacular coastline.

There were two other Mayo nominees - Friends of Doohoma Coastline in the Local Action Award category and Western Care Group in the Special Achievement Award category.

Keep Our Beaches Clean was established in 2018, in Louisburgh. On a weekly basis they have volunteers picking litter on our shores.

So far, in 2022, they have had in excess of 70 beach cleans and removed more than 2,000 kgs of rubbish from our shores.

The group say they have now reached a stage where 90% of the rubbish they collect has been washed in from sea and it would be rare to see rubbish casually discarded at the beaches.

However, there is a continuous problem with cigarette butts and dog poop bags, but Keep Our Beaches Clean have measures in place to tackle this going forward, including a Clean Coasts grant that supported the purchase of a number of cigarette bins and a dog poop bin. The bins will be maintained and emptied by volunteers and they plan to have an awareness campaign/event for the installation of the new bins.

In 2022, they also restored benches that they bought in previous years, and also purchased and installed a 100% recycled wheelchair accessible bench as they believe everyone should have access to facilities and they are continuing to work on improving this.

A representative from the group said: “Our initial aim was to create a volunteer group that were committed to keeping Louisburgh’s and the surrounding beaches clean, raising awareness and working together to fight marine pollution. I am incredibly pleased to say that it has been achieved locally.

"The beaches are much cleaner and the level of awareness has grown considerably.”