Dorset litter pickers defy the weekend storms to clear the county's coastline

The Great Dorset Beach Clean 2021 took place on Saturday and Sunday

Author: Sophie CridlandPublished 25th May 2021
Last updated 25th May 2021

This year's Great Dorset Beach Clean has been a success with groups from places like Weymouth, Durdle Door and Lake Pier collecting rubbish from the county's coastline.

Last year the initiative organised Litter Free Coast and Sea was cancelled due to the pandemic but in 2019 they manged to clear over 214 bags of rubbish.

The aim of the event is to reduce marine and beach litter and to improve the water quality of the Dorset amd East Decon coasts.

21 beach cleans took place along the Dorset coast over the weekend hosted by a number of organisations and community groups, including Dorset Wildlife Trust, National Trust and Leave Only Footprints.

Some groups have been posting their results on social media.

Lulworth Rangers collected over 30KG of litter as Thursday and Friday's storm had washed up a variety of flotsam and jetsam.

The volunteers collected litter at the Cove, Durdle Door and Man O War.

Bags of rubbish collected from Southbourne Beach

Weymouth saw singletons, couples, families and dogs start their litter pick at Hamm beach, Ferrybridge and all the way to Pirates Cover.

27 bags of litter were collected plus lots of bulky pieces.

Baboo Gelato and The Wyke Smugglers supported it by supplying the refreshments.

Despite the cloudy skies, several bags of litter were also collected by National Trust Studland, from across South Beach, Middle Beach, Knoll Beach, Shell Bay and from the sand dunes and woodland.

Most of the rubbish picked up at Charmouth was bottle tops, disposable face masks and micro plastics.

Sadly the Highcliffe beach clean was cancelled but they have rescheduled the event to July 18th.

Hear all the latest news from across the UK on the hour, every hour, on Greatest Hits Radio on DAB, smartspeaker, at greatesthitsradio.co.uk, and on the Rayo app.