Volunteers launch competition to guess weight of schoolgirls’ haul of beach rubbish

Sophia and Holly Manclark with the bag - can you guess what it weighs?

Residents are being invited to guess the weight of a bag of rubbish collected from Botany Bay beach at the weekend.

The debris was cleared by  junior volunteers, Holly Manclark, 8 and little sister Sophia,5, in just one hour. The girls litter pick with Northdown Park and the Friends of Botany Bay and Kingsgate groups.

The girls, from Palm Bay, cleared a disgusting amount of trash discarded on the beach.

In all the youngsters cleared away scores of items including thrown away underpants, sanitary towels and numerous bags of dog waste.

The girls’ haul

14 Wet wipes
8 Face masks
6 Takeaway coffee cups
5 Coffee cup lids
Lots of toilet paper
1 Bag for Life
22 Dog waste bags and carrier bags
4 Hair bands
2 Fast food takeaway boxes
4 Crisp packets
4 Hair clips
1 Ketchup bottle
Fishing wire, net and rope – 11 bundles, various sizes
2 Tennis balls
6 Plastic bottle lids
4 Beer bottle lids
10 Beer cans
4 Plastic bottles
2 Discarded Socks
1 Helium balloon
2 Sanitary towels
2 AAA batteries
Discarded underpants

The Friends of Botany Bay and Kingsgate are now setting residents a challenge to guess the weight of the rubbish bag (pictured with the girls in the main article image).

One lucky winner will receive a pet portrait in pastels A4 size (unframed), by Botany Bay artist Christine Wright. She will produce the portrait from a photograph.

Christine is a self taught professional pet and wildlife artist. She has had a love of painting since childhood and paints in acrylic, pastels and oils.

People can also commission a pet portrait by Christine. Contact 0748696517 or email  [email protected]

The competition

Using your skill and judgment calculate the weight of the litter collected:

  •  2-3 kilos
  • 3-4 Kilos
  • 4-5 Kilos

Enter at: www.botanybaykent.co.uk/competition

Friends of Botany Bay and Kingsgate

The Friends of Botany Bay and Kingsgate group has set up as a community interest company and is encouraging people to pay £15 for a Beach Clean Hour.

In return £5 will go towards the group’s nominated charities and an hour’s clean will take place with the volunteer posting a video or photos to show where and when the clean took place.

The remaining £10 of the fee will cover overheads, which includes an initial spend to create the CIC, with website, hosting and accounting costs.

Last year the volunteers gave some 2,000 hours of their time keeping Botany, Whiteness and Kingsgate Bays clean. On a typical busy weekend there would be 30 volunteers collecting some 30 bags of rubbish each day and preventing tonnes of plastics from entering our ocean eco-system.

You can support the work of the Botany Bay and Northdown Park volunteer litter picking teams at www.botanybaykent.co.uk/donate  All cash surplus goes to local charities.

1 Comment

  1. Which, so called, ‘civilised’ people leave this sort of waste on a public beach? Adults and children should not be expected to have to endure this. You can blame the Council, you can blame whoever you like, but the only people who are really to blame are the people who leave this waste behind

Comments are closed.