Late summer sunshine provided the ideal backdrop at Grattan Beach on Friday last, as third class pupils from the nearby Claddagh National School donned their gloves and shouldered their litter-pickers to take part in a morning beach clean.

The beach clean was organised as part of #BigBeachClean24 by Clean Coasts, a unit of An Taisce which highlights the importance of keeping beaches and coastal environments free of litter.

Approximately 40 pupils from Claddagh NS were dispatched across Grattan Beach at low tide to bag whatever pieces of litter they could find, before returning and cataloguing their discoveries, as a means of learning more about the types of rubbish and waste items that can end up polluting our beaches.

The event was coordinated by Ollie O’Flaherty (Clean Coasts Development Officer) and Patrick Cross (Clean Coasts Campaigns Officer) in partnership with Uisce Éireann and with support from the teachers and parents of Claddagh NS and representatives from Galway City Council, to highlight the Think Before You Flush initiative.

Think Before You Flush is a public awareness campaign highlighting the problems that items such as wet wipes, cotton buds, sanitary waste and dental floss can cause to our wastewater networks and our marine environment if they are flushed down the toilet.

The pupils located some of these items over the course of their beach clean and were able to learn first-hand about the wastewater chain which carries items irresponsibly flushed down the toilet all the way to the sea, and potentially cause harm to our marine and coastal environments.

Also there on the day were Dr Maria Vittoria Marra and Tara Noonan from the nearby Galway Atlantaquaria, who took the pupils rock-pooling after the beach clean was complete and helped them to find and identify different types of crustaceans such as hermit crabs and limpets.

Liz Cullina is a third class teacher at Claddagh NS and was among the school staff helping out on the day. She said there are multiple benefits in getting the pupils involved in an event such as the beach clean — “just coming down, being in the fresh air, organising themselves into groups and co-operating, learning about the wildlife”.

Pictured: Third class pupils and teachers of Claddagh NS pictured after they took part in the Big Beach Clean at Grattan Beach last Friday morning, with Uisce Éireann’s Mark Higgins. Photo: Patrick Cross (Clean Coasts).