Solas doing their bit to clean up mother earth

Sinead and her Oran go to the beach, and they see the rubbish, and think how bad it is. Sinead says this to Nuala, who says she would like to take bags with her. I overhear this conversation and straight away I’m feeling “Why should I collect another mess?  I’m here for a walk and anyway it is not my job to clean up messes.

But then I see the mess on the baech. The 3 of us get to work. But how are we goingb to get the bags we collect disposed of?

I can hear/see the discussion unfolding. We’re talking ourselves out of doing anything.

I call the Milford County Council telephone number. I’m put through to Dungloe.  A nice man there explains he doesn’t normally deal with this kind of thing, but he says he’ll take a  note of it.  (Typical civil servant, I feel).  But am I wrong! By the time we get back to the car park, 2 hours later, the County Council lorry is wating for us. We’ve collected 12 bags, but can only carry 2 very heavy bags over the sand-hills. (There is no road for motor vehicles to Tramore Beach). And the Council can’t help us get the rest.

But we are not defeated.

Having read about a clean up on Tamore Beach previously I know that it is possible to get the job done. So we go on a mission.  Eamonn Trearty and myself go to the Ozanam Centre, as he knows this is the place we talked to someone who knew the ropes.  They told us to get in touch with Sue Alcorn.

Armed with the number for Sue Alcorn we speak with her and explain our conundrum/mission. Sue is most obliging and it is all sorted in about 5 minutes.

Our Solas gang will return to Tramore Beach the next day, and Sue will arrange for the bags to be collected at the gate of the beach. No need for us to carry bags any distance.

So on Tuesday we get gloves and bags and fill 42 more bags of litter.

The walk from the car-park to the beach is spectacular. The sight  then on walking onto the beach is indescribable. We have enjoyed the walk for years and now will continue to enjoy it with the litter removed. It only took 2 hours in total to do the collection. And as we did we discuss the weird stuff we were finding. Mainly plastics and food wrappers, and some weird gel filled tubes that are there in their thousands. What are we swimming in ?

A passerby comments on the thankless job we are doing. But, do you know what? They didn’t really know the satisfaction we get doing our bit for Mother Nature/Earth!

So next time you see a can lying in your path, why not spare your brain the negative thoughts and just pick up that can and bin it!

The beach at Tramore will need a few more dedicated hours of cleaning to collect the rest of the mess, but sin sceal eile 

 Suzi (10-02-14)