WHO ARE WE?
We are Clean Ocean Sailing. A Cornish voluntary organisation, dedicated to cleaning our coasts and oceans sustainably under sail, and raising awareness about ocean plastics.
With the help of The Annette and some smaller crafts, we sail and paddle to remote, inaccessible places to clean up our coast by collecting plastic from the shores - sorting, recording, reusing and recycling it.
Since we began in 2017, we have collected 80 tonnes of marine rubbish, which we fully sort for proper disposal and recycling.
Most of our work centres around the beautiful Helford River in Cornwall, where our founders - Monika and Steve - live in Gweek with little Simon and Rosie the dog. With groups of volunteers, Clean Ocean Sailing coordinates regular beach cleans down the river to the coves inaccessible by land, which are overflowing with plastic waste. We will now be venturing further, on our third big voyage to the Isles of Scilly.
In order to do this, we need your help.
OUR MISSION
We will travel from Cornwall to the Scillies on our sailboat Annette - a 116 year old gaff rigged schooner - to clean-up the wild and mostly uninhabited archipelago. In 2023, we carried out the same mission and covered 216 miles worth of sailing, rowing and paddling.
Plastic waste washes up with the tide and covers the beaches and coastline. This is a massive problem for the whole marine environment, including wildlife - sea mammals, sea birds and fish. Hazards include entanglement, ingestion and transmission of bacteria and pollutants. Particularly through the consumption of fish, this has a direct impact on human health.
Much of the litter is inaccessible by foot, as well as extremely difficult to move. Special access permission is granted to COS to enable reach of most of the plastics, and smaller crafts become a necessity – kayaks, dinghies, paddle-boards and even swimmers.
Our Scilly voyages are planned at specific times of year in order to disturb wildlife as little as possible. We get special authorisation to visit the smaller uninhabited islands, which usually have a year-round ban on human visitation. These islands are the most polluted, due to being mostly untouched. Thus, we will be collecting and documenting plastic found, where hardly anyone has ever been.
We will collect and record marine waste from the beaches, coves and coastlines, whilst raising awareness about plastic pollution. We are expecting to clean up more than 8 tonnes of man-made marine rubbish from the Isles of Scilly, all of which will be sorted, weighed and recorded, before being brought back to the mainland where it can be properly recycled to ensure it doesn’t end up causing further harm to wildlife.
Previous clean-up data below.
WHY WE NEED YOUR HELP
Every day, ocean currents are bringing in more rubbish, which is unfortunately washed up on the Scilly Isles, seriously threatening our marine environment. With your help, we plan to make this voyage four times a year, with more and more volunteers each time, in order to keep the Isles of Scilly such a beautiful paradise.
Our UK coasts and seas are amongst the most diverse and beautiful on the planet, playing host to a wealth of wildlife including dolphins, sharks, whales and turtles. Over half of the UK’s wildlife resides within our seas and many other species such as seabirds rely on them for their survival.
By donating anything you can and supporting our work, you will be helping us to continue organising beach cleans, working with local people and businesses on finding solutions to the problem and keeping the issue of marine litter in the public eye.
More than 100,000 marine mammals and 1 million seabirds die every year from plastic pollution, 20% of which comes from boats, with the rest coming from land. Over 69% of all litter on UK beaches alone is plastic, with micro plastic particles outnumbering plankton 26 to 1. A staggering 8 million tonnes of plastic waste enter the oceans every year. This is equivalent to one garbage truck of plastic dumping into the ocean every minute.
With these shocking statistics, it’s easy to understand why we care so much about keeping as much plastic as possible out of our oceans. There are so many things we can do as consumers to help, but unfortunately so much damage has already been done, so it is our responsibility to try and clean up as much as possible.
You can help us make a difference cleaning up this beautiful part of our country and to continue spreading the message of plastic pollution, while gathering valuable information on the rubbish that is in our oceans and harming our wildlife.
WHAT DO WE DO WITH THE PLASTICS COLLECTED?
All waste collected is brought back to the mainland, where it is CLEANED, SORTED, SEPERATED, COUNTED, WEIGHED and sent off to various different organisations for RECYCLING, including Odyssey Innovation, Castaway Ropeworks, One Blue Eye and Ecotribolife (to name a few).
Some of the materials are used for making kayaks, which we then use on our cleanup missions. Some of the organisations we work with use our collected plastics to make handcrafted items and gifts, and another makes clothing. Thus, the plastics are given another life and are used to promote greener product alternatives. Exeter Recycling Centre also efficiently recycle materials that can’t be used by our creative partners.
PREVIOUS MISSION SUCCESS
Back in February 2019, we undertook our first amazingly successful and eye-opening expedition to the Isles of Scilly with a wonderful team of volunteers.
Together with the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust, we cleaned up five islands and other beaches on Samson, Tean, White Island, Gugh, St. Marys, as well as at Coverack, Prisk Cove and the Helford River.
We collected 39 dumper bags worth of rubbish, weighing at 3,563kg. This included 19,061 individual pieces of litter, 1,100 hours of volunteer-work, and covered 8 miles of coastline.
In our 2023 Scillies Mission, we cleaned 15 islands and collected 2,722kg of marine rubbish. This included 10,421 individual pieces of litter, 622 voluntary hours of labour, and 11km of coastline.
Please help us to keep on returning and to continue our vital mission.
THANK YOU!
From Steve, Moni and the COS Crew.