Marine and beach litter can be toxic and may cause injury due to jagged edges, broken glass etc. All objects must be handled with care and entirely at your own risk. The franchisor can bear no responsibility for any harm to humans or animals caused by items on any ‘A present from...’ stall or anywhere else on any beach, wheresoever located, or in the sea.

‘A present from...’ items are unsuitable for children under 14 years, seabirds and all marine animals. Contact with the rubbish may cause entanglement or strangulation whilst ingestion may lead to poisoning, starvation and internal injury.

Marine litter has a major impact on wildlife. It is estimated that, globally, over a million birds and 100,000 marine mammals and turtles die every year from entanglement, or ingestion of plastics. Over 177 species are affected. A minke whale that was stranded on a beach in Normandy was found to have 800g of plastic bags and packaging within its stomach - including English packaging.

Since 1994, beach litter levels in the UK have more than doubled with a current average of around 2200 items per km.
There are four key causes of beach litter: beach visitors, fishing debris, sanitary waste, and shipping litter.

More than 50% of marine litter is plastic. In 2006 the UN estimated therewas on average 46,000 pieces of plastic per square mile of ocean worldwide. (This figure may by now be over 100,000!) Plastic takes between 450 and 1000 years to degrade at sea, finding its way into our food chain and environment. Samples of sand from UK beaches have been examined and found to have up to 10,000 microscopic plastic fibres per litre of sand.

For further information, see the following web-sites:

Marine Conservation Society: www.mcsuk.org
Adopt-A-Beach & Beachwatch: www.adoptabeach.org.uk
Greenpeace: oceans.greenpeace.org
Whale & Dolphin Conservation Society: www.wdcs.org
ENCAMS (Keep Britain Tidy campaign): www.encams.org
Blue Flag campaign: www.blueflag.org.uk
Surfers Against Sewage: www.sas.org.uk
The National Trust: www.nationaltrust.org.uk

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