WITH a busy Bank Holiday Weekend and warm weather to be expected this weekend, beach goers are being advised to look after their rubbish.

Leave Only Footprints, an initiative set up by the BCP Council, are encouraging holidaymakers to enjoy to facilities on offer but to be conscious of what they leave behind.

Volunteers scoured Bournemouth Beach for litter on Friday morning and collected a seizable amount of rubbish considering that they are not the group to clean them.

Emily Fergusson, Leave Only Footprints Engagement Officer, said: “Rangers collect rubbish in the evenings, beach cleaners come out the following morning and the beach tractors also go out early in the mornings, yet we still find buried rubbish and cigarette butts.

“Most of the rubbish that we find it partially or almost fully buried in the sand. What’s concerning for me is that, when the tide comes in or the wind picks it would be swept or blown into the sea.

“Ahead of a what is expected to be a sunny bank holiday my advice to visitors would be to enjoy the beach, and at the end if their visit to take their rubbish to the bins along the seafront, we have installed black bins for general waste and blue bins for recycling.

“Clearing the whole beach may seem like a mammoth task but every small action adds up, so if we all adopt the Leave Only Footprints thinking, the positive impact would be huge.”

The environments campaign group have also recently set up a new project for beach toys that are left behind on the beach. Working with Plastic Free Bournemouth, the BCP seafront beach cleansing teams have been collecting toys that have been left on the beach over the past few weeks to put in their Beach Toy Library Box, which can be re-used by future avid beach goers.

Visitors are encouraged to return the toys back to the library box once they leave the beach, so they can be enjoyed time and time again. The wooden boxes, which are recycled wine crates, will be located at beach offices from Sandbanks to Southbourne and will be out for visitors to use between 9am and 5.30pm daily.

Andrew Brown, Seafront Operations Manager said: “We are very excited to be launching the beach toy library box scheme along our seafront in Bournemouth & Poole. It’s amazing how many toys get left at the beach, so it only makes sense for us and the environment to make good use of them.”