Litter levels remain high on Guernsey beaches

Wednesday, 1 April 2026 18:00

More than one thousand pieces of litter were found per mile of Guernsey coastline during the Clean Earth Trust's 2025 beach cleans.

The Clean Earth Trust aims to limit human impact on the environment.

For five years, volunteers have been conducting bi-weekly beach cleans and consistently collect large quantities of waste.

In 2025, the total number of items was 30,156 and 77.6% was plastic.

Policy officer Paul Bugden says the data shows people still don't appreciate the impact of littering, and their work is not done yet:

"Despite all the effort, we haven't really made a dent in the amount of litter that is being found.

"There's certainly no reason for thinking that we can relax.

"It's a task that we will have to stick at to try and maintain the cleanliness of our beaches."

More than 7,000 cigarette butts were collected, which the trust estimates would translate to almost half a million pounds in littering fines.

Paul explains why they would like to ban smoking on beaches:

"Cigarettes are one of the most toxic things that are part of our marine litter.

"A single cigarette butt diluted in a litre of water is sufficient to kill 50% of the small fish immersed in that dilution.

"If you imagine a cigarette butt being trapped in a rock pool, there is a real danger that between two tides, that might be enough to actually be poisoning and potentially killing small crustaceans, small fish, and so on, which are at the bottom of the food chain for the rest of the marine animals."