By Claire Jacobs
Environmentalists are stripping naked to clean Brighton Beach to get into the record books.
Strip The Beach is a clean-up campaign designed to declutter the beach of rubbish whilst raising awareness of the problems that sea litter, marine plastics and discarded fishing equipment can cause.
Event organiser and WhaleFest outreach officer Russell Arnott said: “8 million tons of plastic is added to our oceans every year. Plastic can take hundreds of years to break down naturally so in the meantime it continues to wash up on beaches all over the world harming wildlife and damaging the food chain.”
Participants are encouraged to get naked in order to attempt the Guinness World Record for the number of naked people at an event. Volunteers can be clothed if they prefer.
Recent funding cuts for street and beach cleaning by Brighton Council has led to charities and nature welfare organisations setting up beach cleaning activities.
The event, organised by the World Cetacean Alliance, coincides with the Marine Conservation Society’s Great British Beach Clean weekend and is supported by WhaleFest, Incredible Oceans, Brighton Naked Bike Ride and Brighton Council.
Strip The Beach is taking place Sunday 18 September, 12-4pm at the Black Rock naturist beach area. More details can be found on their website.
Claire Jacobs writes the blog Confessions of a Single Parent Pessimist.
You may want to reconsider that headline! a slight spelling mistake maybe???
Thanks – and sorted now! Plenty of great comment on our Fb page – at my expense!
Great idea, apart from the naked bit, no need for that.
Come on its raising awareness more than anything.
I’m all for naked women doing beach cleaning, but I don’t want to see a load of naked blokes doing it.
Well, to each his own. Many of us would much rather see naked guys doing beach cleaning than a load of naked women.
Hey , it might raise all sorts of things
It’ll certainly raise something ^
One assumes that pick pocketing will decrease then ?.
It might also raise awareness at the amount of litter the visitors to our beaches leave behind!
It’s a great idea. Will raise awareness and be fun. If you are going to ‘see naked women’as one commentator had said, then you completely miss the point. That is voyeurism which is inappropriate.
I hope lots of people turn up and it gets lots of coverage, not just from the prudish but from the open minded and imaginitive.
I can’t make it. But I’m with you in spirit!