Staff from the South West’s leading four-star hotel swapped their suits for overalls to help clear one of their local beaches of plastic waste.
With the war on the man-made material attracting world-wide attention, small armies of volunteers across the globe have begun to mobilise to help clean up their local environment.
Joining the #suez4ocean initiative, the team of ocean guardians from the DoubleTree by Hilton, Cadbury House in Congresbury spent the day collecting litter at Uphill Beach near Weston-Super-Mare.
Joined by staff from Hampton by Hilton, Bristol Airport, the event was organised in partnership with SUEZ recycling and recovery UK, which manages the waste and recycling for more than 80 Hilton Hotels in the UK.
Amassing 20 bags of waste, the volunteering effort formed part of the Hilton group’s Global Week of Service initiative and was led by General Manager Mehmet Kandemir. The waste was then collected for processing by the North Somerset Street Cleaning team who will send it on to be sorted and baled before being reprocessed into recycled goods.
Mehmet said: “The issue of plastic waste in our seas and oceans really hit home when Sir David Attenborough highlighted the problem on the acclaimed Blue Planet 2 TV programme.
“Although it’s not necessarily a new issue, when you get someone as highly respected as Sir David saying enough is enough, then we all have to sit up and take notice.
“Making small changes can have a big impact, especially if collectively we all do something. At Cadbury House for example, we stopped using water cooler bottles many, many years ago and switched to a water purification system. This means we don’t take delivery of any plastic water bottles.
“Having helped collect so much rubbish in one day made the whole team realise the scale of the issue. We all pledged that anytime any of us are at the beach or by a waterway we’ll make an effort to bring home any rubbish we see and I hope others do the same.”
Cassie Brice-Bennett, Senior Key Account Manager for Offices, Hotels & Leisure at SUEZ recycling and recovery UK, added: “There are 269,000 tonnes of plastic in the ocean, and 80% of it is reaching the sea through gaps in the waste stream on land. We are pleased to be partnering with Hilton to tackle ocean pollution and look forward to working together to capture more waste materials for recycling at source, keeping them in use and out of our waterways.”
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