The UK’s leading marine charity says it hopes people who love the coast around Dorset will take part in a nationwide beach clean event which includes clean-ups at Chesil Beach and Bournemouth.

The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) runs regular beach cleans around the UK which this year will culminate in the Great British Beach Clean over the weekend of September 19-22.

MCS says it hopes to get a record number of people cleaning beaches around the UK during its Great British Beach Clean weekend and is looking for volunteers in Dorset. Tom Bell, MCS Campaigns Manager, says the event hopes to return many of Britain’s beaches to their halcyon days of the 50s and 60s, before we became a throw away society resulting in thousands of pieces of litter, including vast amounts of plastic, along every kilometre of the UK’s coastline.

He said: “Our domestic habits over the last 50 years or so have resulted in dirty beaches. We throw more stuff away than ever.

“Plastic in the marine environment may take hundreds of years to break down and it washes up or is blown onto beaches in bits from micro pieces to larger chunks.

“We flush stuff down the loo we shouldn’t, and that ends up in our water ways and then our beaches.

“We want to see people turning out to clean up their favourite or local beach during our Great British Beach Clean weekend – please don’t turn your back out beaches.” There are beach clean events in Dorset in Baiter Park, Bournemouth, Chesil Beach, Chesil cove, Durdle door, Friars Cliff Beach, Hengistbury Head, Holes Bay, Lulworth cove, Newton’s Cove, Ringstead, Seatown, Whitley lake, Knoll Beach, Ham Coomon and Worbarrow. To find out dates and times at individual beaches and to sign up to the Great British Beach Clean in Dorset, register at www.mcsuk.org/greatbritishbeachclean or call 01989 567807.