Every piece of plastic that you remove from the marine environment is no longer a danger to the animals that still live there. Every piece of litter you pick up off the street will not enter the waterways and end up in the sea. Every item removed from the ocean will not degrade into thousands of tiny, toxic pieces of micro plastic and end up being ingested by fish or sea mammals. Every item removed from a beach will not go on to kill. Every item of plastic removed from your street, beach or park will help to improve it and improve the lives and businesses of people using it. Every item you remove from the beach will be good for you too. Beach cleaning gets you outside, helps to keep you healthy and fit and feeling good, and enables you to take care of nature and take care of what is yours.

On top of this, every item of plastic that you refuse, buying decision you make, litre of petrol you don’t use when you walk, kilowatt of energy you save when you turn off the lights, plastic bag that you don’t use when you take your own makes a difference too. Small actions add up to make a big difference.

Since the #2minutebeachclean started in 2013 there have been over 175,000 posts to Instagram using the hashtag, and countless more on Twitter and Facebook. It all adds up to a big difference. If we estimate each 2 minute clean weighs in at 1-2KG then that’s around 200 tonnes of litter removed from the world’s oceans – just by taking a little time!!!

That’s important!