Rubbish strewn beaches cleaned-up

The amount of litter on beaches has fallen

More than 6,000 pieces of litter have been removed from Northern Ireland's beaches by teams of volunteers.

The figure is in the Beachwatch 2008 survey, published on Wednesday by the Marine Conservation Society.

On average 940 items of litter were found per kilometre, less than the UK average of 2,195 and down on 2007.

Ten beaches in Northern Ireland were surveyed and public litter, followed by fishing litter, were the most common types of rubbish.

The national figure found that the amount of litter on the UK's beaches has more than doubled in the last 15 years.

The 2008 survey recorded and removed some 385,659 items of rubbish including fishing nets, plastic bags, cigarette butts and cotton bud sticks from beaches across the UK.

The average amount of rubbish found was 2,195 items per kilometre (0.6 miles) - more than two pieces for every metre (3.3ft) of beach, and more than double the 1,045 items per kilometre picked up during the first annual survey in 1994.

The Marine Conservation Society said birds can mistake litter for food

The Marine Conservation Society said more than 170 species of wildlife including seabirds, turtles and whales have been known to mistake litter for food, which can lead to starvation, poisoning and fatal stomach blockages.

The conservation charity wants to see the amount of beach litter halved by 2015, and is calling for a co-ordinated approach from government and the devolved administrations to clean up the shorelines.

More than 5,000 volunteers for the MCS surveyed 175.7 kilometres (109 miles) on 374 beaches for the survey, collecting 3,188 bags of rubbish across the UK last September.

More than a third of the litter picked up (37.7%) was classed as "public litter", which has come from members of the public and includes rubbish such as cigarette butts, drinks and food containers and plastic bags left on the beach or washed or blown over from other places.

Fishing litter, such as nets or angling lines, accounted for 13.8% of the debris collected, while sewage-related rubbish accounted for 6.2% - of which 60% was cotton bud sticks.

Debris from shipping accounted for 1.8% of all items collected in the survey and clean-up.