Beach Guardian

Every Can Counts celebrates its partnership with Beach Guardian

Every Can Counts celebrates its partnership with Beach Guardian 1920 1080 PedroUK

One of the most beautiful locations in the UK, Cornwall is almost entirely surrounded by the Atlantic, a magnificent coastline of some 300 miles.  Boasting spectacular beaches and captivating fishing harbours, the surf provides a natural playground for locals and holidaymakers.  And amongst the Cornish cream teas and surfboards, we find Beach Guardian.

Beach Guardian connects people with the environment to improve health and wellbeing, through regular community beach cleans and educational workshops with schools and other groups.

Every Can Counts has been working in partnership with Beach Guardian for over a year, so what better time to pack jumpers, wellies and waterproofs and head south-west in order to get involved in their fabulous work first-hand.

Against a backdrop of seriously wet and wild weather, the founders of Beach Guardian took us on a tour of the coastline, so we could see for ourselves how local businesses have implemented Every Can Counts on their premises.  We got stuck into a beach clean and spoke to people who have a shared commitment to protect the environment.  It is fair to say that we were cold, whipped by the gale-force winds, soaked to the skin, and most importantly – truly inspired.

For Emily Stevenson, Beach Guardian is a passion.  With her bold statement of wearing a graduation gown made of Walkers crisp packets, Emily reaches out to the world to increase awareness of the need to protect our precious oceans.

We learn from Rob Stevenson, who co-founded the project with daughter Emily Stevenson, how small regular beach cleans blossomed into Beach Guardian.

Mother Ivey’s Bay is home to an award-winning holiday park and is one of the many sites Beach Guardian and Every Can Counts have worked with to support drink can recycling.  Guests, team members and sustainability are at the heart of this long-established business.  Owner Patrick explains how they got involved with Beach Guardian.

Every Can Counts has supported Beach Guardian by providing can collection bins and free-standing can crushers to sites across Cornwall, so people can recycle their drink cans more easily when they are out and about.  If you would like to find out more about how Every Can Counts can support businesses and organisations in your local area, please get in touch by emailing everycancounts@alupro.org.uk or call the team on 01527 597757.

Every Can Counts and Beach Guardian

Every Can Counts and Beach Guardian 2560 1920 PedroUK

For our recent Alupro team meeting, we decided to head down to Cornwall and visit Beach Guardian, a community interest company which partners with our Every Can Counts programme.  Against the backdrop of the beautiful Cornish coastline, we learnt more about the work of Beach Guardian and how they engage with a vast range of stakeholders to educate and inspire people to get involved with cleaning and maintaining local beaches.

And what better way for the Alupro team to learn about Beach Guardian’s work than to take part in a beach clean themselves?  The weather was wet and wild as we clambered up and down rocks and negotiated the incoming tide.  Some of the team were more adventurous, others trod with caution, but we all made it out unscathed – if a little bit wet!

We were keen to share what we found in the sand and hidden in the rocks, which included shards of plastic, a flip-flop, snorkel mask, bicycle tyre and even a mysterious bone!  Yet amongst the detritus there was also treasure – a number of beautiful mermaid purses (or shark egg cases), which The Shark Trust encourages people to record as part of the Great Eggcase Hunt.

After a truly windswept experience enjoying the outdoors and sea air of Cornwall, we can all now proudly say #IAmABeachGuardian

Beach Guardian wins Green Can Award for Recycling

Beach Guardian wins Green Can Award for Recycling 2560 1707 PedroUK

Beach Guardian based in Padstow, Cornwall have received a national recycling award for their outstanding work in recycling drink cans and raising awareness of the impact to the environment by people not recycling.

The Every Can Counts Green Can Award has been awarded to Beach Guardian co-founders – father and daughter duo Rob Stevenson and Emily Stevenson.

Beach Guardian was established in 2017 and organises voluntary beach cleans, on average one every week with around 25 people volunteering.  Litter and marine plastics are collected, taken back to their Lab in Padstow where it is sorted and cleaned, to take into schools in Cornwall and run art and educational workshops.

They also engage with businesses and organisations to encourage their staff to volunteer and to reduce their reliance on unnecessary single use plastics. This has meant getting retailers, shops and takeaways to switch from drinks in plastic bottles to drinks in cans, including brands such as Life Water and Canowater. Beach Guardian have used social media to regularly post about their activities. This has encouraged people within Cornwall to save and recycle their cans which has meant a huge increase in awareness amongst the various coastal communities.

Recycling bins have been distributed throughout Cornwall to the Council, cafes and shops, including outdoor ones at the Falmouth Maritime Museum, Old Macdonald’s Farm and Rick Stein’s restaurants in Padstow and Newquay. Beach Guardian have teamed up with Henry Orchard and Sons to recycle all the drink cans collected.

Henry Orchard says “Here in the UK we recycle twice as much as we did 15 years ago, but there’s still a long way to go. We’re proud to do our bit with our involvement with Every Can Counts and Beach Guardian, as well as our own safe and efficient metal and waste electricals processing. We have been taking in aluminium cans and giving a donation to the Beach Guardian project for every bag we receive as part of this initiative.”

Presenting the award Kate Cole Programme Manager for Every Can Counts says “It is an honour to present a Green Can Award to Beach Guardian. This is a fantastic example of how collecting and recycling drinks cans and other metal packaging not only generates much needed funds it also makes a significant contribution to the environment.”

Rob Stevenson Co-Founder and Director of Beach Guardian says “We would like to see every business switch from selling drinks in Plastic Bottles to Aluminium Cans. Even with the introduction of the Deposit Return Scheme, plastic bottles can only be recycled up to 18 times whereas Aluminium can be recycled and used again and again to make new packaging and Aluminium is endlessly recyclable cutting down on waste and saving energy too.”

Every Can Counts is a free to use recycling initiative that aims to increase the number of drinks cans recycled, whether at work or while out and about.

The programme aims to increase the number of drinks cans recycled, whether at work or whilst out and about, by providing practical advice and support, including free communication materials and help with finding a recycling collection partner.