Words by Smiley Team
Living on the wild Cornish coastline, Amy Slack is passionate about the sea, claiming to have always been “a bit of a water baby”. That’s why, for over ten years, she has been clearing up rubbish from beaches and oceans.
First picking up litter informally as a sailing instructor on the Isles of Scilly, she discovered her biggest “bugbear”: cigarette butts. Teaming up with other environmentalists, she later adopted the ‘No Butts on the Beach’ campaign to rid the beaches of these careless throwaways that are so toxic for wildlife.
After building on her environmental work in the Isles of Scilly, helping to reduce the islands’ waste, she continued doing beach cleanups around the UK and even travelled to the Philippines where she led beach cleanups and underwater dives to remove marine pollution.
“We find all sorts on the beaches, in rivers and under the water,” she said. “These days we find a lot of plastic, from single-use plastic packaging and plastic bottles to UFOs…unidentified floating objects – bits of plastic large and small that’s broken up from the power of the sea. We also find lots of bits of fishing net and line on the beaches. But it’s not all plastic, we find metal cans, glass bottles and clothing too.”
In addition to her work cleaning up beaches, she also leads the campaigns and policy team of the activist group Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), which urges those in power to design policy initiatives that will protect the oceans.
Amy explained: “I want to see the ocean thrive and the beautiful underwater world teeming with life. Unfortunately, we’ve seen so many ocean habitats destroyed and many of the creatures that depend on it, struggle for survival.
“It’s so critical to all life on Earth that we see the ocean world restored and I have hope that we can, as a global community, see nature recover.”
To join Surfers Against Sewage as a campaigner and drive change for the oceans, set up your monthly membership via their website.
There is much you can do to help. “Be that from joining one of our cleanups, getting involved in our plastic-free communities, signing a petition to ask the government to make the oceanfront and centre of big climate talks or becoming an SAS member,” explained Amy.
Their most recent petition demands that the UK put the ocean foremost in COP26 climate negotiations. Sign the petition here.
You can also support their work cleaning up beaches and running campaigns by making a donation to SAS.
