British beaches have long been assaulted by litter but now the lazy and thoughtless are adding wet wipes into the mixture.
Conservationists are warning that people are simply flushing the wipes down the lavatory rather than disposing of them in the bin.
This year’s “Great British beach clean” found a whopping 50% increase in the number of wet wipes, which contain plastic and do not disintegrate.
On average, 35 wet wipes were found for every kilometre of beach cleaned last year.
The Marine Conservation Society believes people are using them instead of lavatory paper as well as something handy to remove make-up and apply tanning creams.
The charity’s survey also revealed that the total amount of litter was up more than 6% between 2013 and 2014. Plastic was the most typical type of rubbish followed by aluminium tins for soft drinks.
Worst hit were beaches in the South West.
MCS says that wet wipes can also wind up blocking Britain’s sewers which then causes everything to back up.
More than 300 beaches were cleaned by 5,349 volunteers over a September weekend last year.
The charity has called on the Government to do more to tackle the marine rubbish problem.
At the same time, MPs on the Communities and Local Government committee said the government and industry should work together to sort out the “endemic” litter problem on Britain’s streets.
Clive Betts MP, chairman of the committee, said councils were fighting a “losing battle” against litter.
He said: “Litter levels have remained largely static over the last 12 years, with councils spending hundreds of millions of pounds of tax-payers’ money fighting a losing battle.”
Takeaway food packaging, cigarette ends, and chewing gum in particular were singled out.
