SML Teams Up with Life’s a Beach for South West Clean-Up

As part of our Responsible Business Ambitions we are always looking at ways in which we can give back to the communities where we operate and develop.

Having delivered more than 800,000 sq ft of modern, sustainable warehousing space in the South West this year, a quartet of our team who are based in the region gave up an afternoon of their time to partner with local charity Life’s a Beach in an effort to help clean up the Severn Beach.

Life’s A Beach is a charity set-up by kitchenware retailer ProCook, whose new HQ is based at St. Modwen Park Gloucester, to support the eradication of single use plastics from British beaches and the promotion of reusable products.

As the name suggests, the beach overlooks the Severn Bridge and is a muddy stretch of coastline which wasn’t the easiest to navigate. Undeterred by the terrain and the weather which preceded Storm Ciaran, Pete Davies, Sarah Fordham, Jamie Payne and Tilly Meighen managed to collect more than 20kg of litter in just under two hours.

Whilst that’s an impressive amount to collect in such a short space of time, it highlights a serious issue and shines a light on how it is the responsibility of us all to act as responsibly as we can when it comes to disposing of our own rubbish.

The Life’s A Beach team tell us that they find discarded fishing gear on almost every clean, but even they were surprised with how much was found this time around. This “ghost gear”, as it’s known, is not only dangerous to people enjoying their local beaches but is fatal to marine animals.

As well as finding the usual suspects on this clean, such as bottles, cans, plastic bags, and food wrappers, the team also managed to find a few unusual pieces of rubbish, including:

• A CD of top hits from 2002
• A dog bowl
• Several candles
• A dustpan and brush
• A fence post covered in barbed wire