Beach Business - Sewage and Litter

Gower is host to over fifteen separate beaches and coves that spread around the entire peninsula. From the three-mile long sands of Rhossili; a beach that graces nearly every postcard scene of Gower, to the solitary, hidden coves of Mewslade and Fall Bay. Clicking on the map below will direct you to enjoygower.com's outline of the coastline, which highlights some of the larger beaches:

Current 'Blue Flag' beaches include: Bracelet Bay; Langland Bay and Caswell Bay.

While such natural coastline and beaches exist, so too do the various issues surrounding them. Indeed most of the major issues concerning Gower involve the coastline, such as sand dredging (which is discussed elsewhere on this site). And in researching material for this blog, it was evident that the quality and future of the beach environments around Gower tend to be one of the main concerns for local residents. This can be seen to be due to numerous reasons, some of which will be briefly highlighted below before being analysed in more detail in further blogs:

Sewage:

Sewage and sea quality has been an area of debate for many years, with campaign groups such as Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) being set up to monitor the impact of sewage on sea quality at various locations around Britain and the Channel Islands. Gower has seen much activity within this campaign due to not only the beaches that are popular surfing locations such as Llangennith and Langland, but also because of increasing concerns in the area that sea pollution is worsening. There are numerous reasons for this fear, namely the fact that Swansea Bay in particular has seen much controversy regarding its pollution levels throughout the years. Such pollution fears welcome discussion into the various causes and solutions, yet while most of these centre around arguments on a wider scale, I want to present a few ideas and suggestions about what you can do if beaches are your business.

• Beach cleans: taking part in a beach clean is a simple yet effective way to tackle the problem first hand and now is the time to be doing it. While the days start to get warmer and more people flock to beaches such as Langland and Caswell, it is the ideal time to rid the beaches of winter rubbish. Like most beaches in the UK, Langland and Caswell aren't cleaned over the winter, and due to the strong onshore winds, both beaches are often full of litter and debris by the time summer comes around. On the last clean at Langland, 13 items of litter per metre were counted. By helping out at a beach clean and dedicating just a few hours of your day, you can know that you are directly helping out, while possibly gaining a bit of a tan in the meantime. The next beach clean at Langland will be on April 27th 2008 starting at 11am but if you can't make this one, there is nothing stopping you and a group of friends initiating a clean on any other day.
• Plastic bag campaigns. In Pembrokeshire a local campaign to rid the beaches of plastic bags has been incredibly successful, with hundreds of volunteers dedicating their time to picking up the plastic. Similar campaigns are apparently underway in Swansea and Gower. I will put further information about proposed clean-ups when I find out more.

In the meantime, please visit the Marine Conservation Society for more information about litter, pollution, and its impacts, and also suggestions for how you can get involved with the various campaigns.