STORY PREVIEW

- One use plastic - Littering on the road through our village - Pens running out quickly and going to landfill - Deforestation - Too many cars on the roads - Recycling beach equipment

We have chosen recycling beach equipment as it's a problem that affects us and other villages and tourists that visit our coastal areas. We are in a World Heritage Site and an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and in the Lyme Bay Conservation Area. It is a hotspot for marine diversity and we want to support in protecting this. We have over a 100 thousand visitors to our coast each year and we need to support them in looking after our environment. We have chosen it because we love the beach and the wildlife it brings however people are buying one use beach equipment and leaving it behind / putting it in the bin. We want to help make our coastal environments a safer and happier place to be. We want to reduce the plastic used at the coast and make it more accessible.

The public are affected as they want to access a cleaner beach. Wildlife is affected as plastic is left in their habitats. The volunteers at the beach and people who work at the beach are affected as they have to clean up the plastic. Tourists are affected as they want a cleaner beach. Concerns were linked to the affect plastic has on the environment and how there are not many schemes linked to single use plastic at the coast.

Borrow beach equipment scheme Litter pick up day Beach equipment exchange - bins where people can leave unwanted beach equipment for others to borrow. -near beaches -holiday parks Taps and showers to clean equipment. Make buckets and spades out of better materials Speak to the council via letter, presentation about concerns. Beach equipment donations Recycling bins Posters Reusing beach equipment for other purposes Online posters

We chose to make a beach recycling bin for left over beach equipment. Beach equipment that is left or not needed anymore can be added to the bin. Other people can then borrow the beach equipment. We chose to do this as we thought this would have a bigger, long term impact overall and would help many areas. For example it would help reduce one use plastic, it would help reduce littering and it would help people have fun at the beach without having to buy new things.

We made a joint action plan that ensured everyone was involved in the 'Do' process. We also had a time frame that we tried to stick to as much as possible. The action plan included designing and making the product, liaising with external organisations and thinking about the wider communication we needed to put this in place and promote it. We also thought carefully about the materials we would use and the cost of them. We planned to use natural, donated and low cost materials overall by reaching out to our school community.

The project has impacted very positively as it has achieved many things: 1. Reducing single use plastic 2. Encouraging recycling and reusing 3. Community engagement 4. Cleaner coastlines 5. Accessing the beaches positively. 6. Enabling people to access beaches at a lower cost - by reusing and borrowing! 7. Other places have asked us to make them a Borrow me beach box to implement at their site. 8. It has inspired similar schemes e.g this model can be used for other things e.g camping equipment.

3000

Referring to the question above we can't put a number on this. It impacts tourists and locals alike as well as volunteers and employees who work hard to keep out beaches clean. Freshwater Holiday Park has 3000 plus visitors each year and members of the public can access and use their beach as well. It has also inspired other projects like this linked to camping. Member of the public that uses the holiday park: "Lovely idea! Last year we handed our sand toys to another family that had not long arrived! We will definitely pop them in the box before we come home this time!" Freshwater Holiday Park testimonial: "We are fully supporting the Salway Ash initiative here at Freshwater and will continue to be strong advocates for making UK travel more sustainable in the future. The Borrow Me Beach Box is a fantastic step towards this goal in helping visitors to Dorset reduce landfill, protect our coastline and consciously reduce the use of short life cycle plastic beach items."

Our biggest challenge was getting external people on board with our project and finding people to have the box. There was a lot of people on annual leave at the time so we had to wait to see if they would be interested in working with us and lots of hoops to jump through. We have been lucky to overcome this through strong community links.

15-30 Days

Sustainable cities and communities

It links to sustainable cities and communities as this can cover a broad area and our project covers many areas. Having a sustainable community includes recycling and reusing products and reducing one use plastic items. It also includes responsible buying and looking at the environment. We are proud that our project supports many areas of the community and that it's something that will have a long-term positive impact.

We have shared the project with the local paper "Dorset Echo" who carried out an interview with us and they are publishing a story next week. This will reach out to people all across Dorset. The children have shared their project with the school in a school assembly. They also did this assembly to the children, parents and the local community. Freshwater Holiday Park supported us in sharing our project on their social media pages. They did this via Facebook which has 32 thousand followers and Instagram which has 3.4 thousand followers from across the country who visit their park. We tagged the Harmony Project who also shared this on their Facebook page. We have had a huge, positive response to our project from everyone we have shared it with. People have shared again and commented on the amazing effort everyone has made. People have also been impressed that they idea has a longer term impact overall.

More than 100

We plan to keep in contact with the holiday park where the box has gone to and help up keep and promote the use to the box. We have been approached by another place located at another local beach and we have been asked to make them a box. We have made a second box and will be giving them the box over the next few weeks. Having another box will reach out to even more people and support the project aim even more and have a wider impact.