Did you all see SAS on national media last week with the Brown Flag campaign? Isn’t it shocking how our beach operators have claimed that they do tell us if there’s been a spill of raw sewage on our beaches yet I’ve never once seen a sign, never once heard on local radio and not once been made aware that there has been a risk of catching any number of skanky, nasty diseases like hepatitis A, Ecoli, thyphoid or meningitis. And more to the point – they don’t have the systems in place to know when there’s been a spill or not.

The SAS Spring Clean with Barefoot Wines was a great success a couple of weeks back and on the beach we cleaned up here (Newgale – which looks kinda clean) we collected over 300kg of litter, which is a staggering amount considering we were only there for around an hour and a half. Next up is the Motivocean tour.

Surfers Against Sewage have teamed up with Quiksilver Foundation & myGames (powered by v), and will be hitting the road with the biggest beach clean tour in our history. Since 1994, the volume of marine litter on UK beaches has increased by 146%* and SAS is helping combat this tide line of trash through its beach cleans and ongoing campaigns.  ‘Motivocean’ is SAS’s most ambitious beach clean tour to date and will be calling in at over 20 major UK beaches and waterside locations across the nation. to find out more you can drop a quick email to chris@sas.org.ukor check it out on their Facebook Page. Our beach clean will be at Newgale Beach NEXT WEDNESDAY (25th Aug) and we’re meeting at 1pm on the  beach, if you live  near by please come along- it would be great to meet you.

One last note before I get out for a wet and windy walk along the Pembrokeshire coast – the SAS Ball  tickets are still available to buy here www.sasball.co.uk. see you there!!

SAS is on BBC news at 6pm tonight and then on The Tonight Programme on ITV at 7.30 helping expose Combined Sewer Overflows misuse and abuse. Turn in, turn on and freak out! You may have also seen SAS¬†in¬†the Sunday¬†Times¬†over the weekend- if you missed¬†it,¬†it’s worth a read. click here¬†http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7134009.ece

At the end of last week Andy and Hugo left St Agnes for The Big Smoke in their tidy dinner jackets and boardies to collect an award for the Best Marine Project 2010. Three years ago SAS identified tiny plastic pellets known as mermaids tears, on beaches in abundance all over the UK and after tracing them back to their source, exposed the plastic factories as a source of this pollutant. Mermaids tears are the raw material from which plastic products are made and can be a persistent problem in the environment.

In June 09 Operation Clean Sweep was set up to reduce the amount of mermaids tears washing from the factories into the drains- which ultimately end up at sea. The little plastic drops can only be seen when you look, but once you recognise one you see them in their thousands laying in the sand¬†along the tide line. Once in the sea, they can increase in toxicity as they adsorb aqua-phobic chemicals, carcinogen’s and PCBs, that can bio accumulate (work their way up the food chain). SAS are also concerned that they look like fish eggs and have been mistaken for food by the bigger fish- which can wind up on our plate for dinner, so could effect not only the natural environment but also our health.

Anyway, congratulations to Surfers Against Sewage for another very sucessful campaign.