Families encouraged to help clean their local coastline as part of Clean Coasts Big Beach Clean

This weekend, volunteers and their families will remove the litter from our shorelines as part of the annual Clean Coasts Big Beach Clean

Mark McCarthy with his son Joe and daughter Milly of Clean Coasts on Cadogan Beach in Schull, West Cork. Picture: Dan Linehan

A bottle with Taiwanese writing, shotgun cartridges from Newfoundland, and lobster tags from Massachusetts are just some of the pieces of litter that 13-year-old Millie McCarthy, from Schull, and her 14-year-old brother, Leo, have come across during clean-ups of West Cork beaches.

This weekend, the siblings, along with their father, Mark, will participate in the 2025 Clean Coasts Big Beach Clean, the annual call to action as part of the International Coastal Cleanup (ICC), a global initiative led by Ocean Conservancy to mark the end of the bathing season.