Hire scheme sees recovery of harmful broken bodyboards fall by a third

The number of broken bodyboards recovered from South West beaches has fallen by a third after success of Keep Britain Tidy's bodyboard hire scheme and awareness drive.

Our #WaveofWaste hire scheme works with resorts in the South West by supplying them with quality bodyboards to hire to their guests in order to stop demand for cheap disposable boards. The hire cash raised then goes to good causes and to purchase more boards for the following summer's campaign. 

As part of the Ocean Recovery Project 1,011 broken body boards were collected from a handful of South West beaches this summer. 

They were collected from Croyde Bay, Saunton Sands, Bude, Newquay, Perranporth and Polzeath, supported by community groups, beach owners and other organisations. 

The charity first raised the issue in 2010, and since then the Ocean Recovery Project has worked with local communities to educate visitors about the environmental impact of the cheap plastic boards, which release thousands of harmful polystyrene balls when they break. 

Last summer, supported by holiday resorts and leisure outlets, it launched a £1 hire scheme for visitors to rent after 1,503 broken boards were recovered.  

Over the 2022 summer holiday season, the number of snapped boards recovered fell by around a third to 1,011 -  a sign that the scheme is starting to have a positive effect. 

To support our awareness drive, 608 of the broken boards were stacked and displayed on Polzeath beach, while 267.5 others were arranged into a temporary colourful art installation on Perranporth Beach, with support from local artist Vicky Jane Gould and volunteers from the local community. 

The plastic boards were then transported to Devon where they will be reused as insulation for an eco-barn construction. 

Neil Hembrow, from Keep Britain Tidy’s Ocean Recovery Project, said: “Each year tens of thousands of these cheap, poor quality boards are manufactured in southern China and transported 11,000 miles to the UK only to end up as waste for communities across the South West to deal with when people’s summer breaks have ended. 

“We were the first organisation to make the public aware of the problems caused by cheap bodyboards in 2010, and although there’s a long way to go, it’s really encouraging to see signs that people are starting to make the right choices, whether it’s by buying a longer lasting higher quality board, using our £1 rent scheme or buying wooden belly boards which have seen a recent resurgence.  

"Our hire scheme is helping as part of the bigger drive to eradicate these cheap boards, and since we started to raise awareness, some local shops are now refusing to sell them or are changing their stock to higher quality boards. 

“We want to remind visitors to our beautiful coast that while some bodyboards may be ‘cheap’ to buy they are very costly for our environment.” 

The poor quality of polystyrene bodyboards means many snap after just a few uses. They are either left to pollute the marine environment, where they unleash thousands of miniature polystyrene balls, or end up in landfill or incineration. 

Resorts signed-up for the #WaveofWaste £1 hire scheme this summer: 

• Wooda Farm Holiday Park, near Bude. 
• Away resorts, Bude. 
• Treloy Caravan Park 
• Tollgate Farm caravan and camping 
• East Thorne 
• Yeomadon farm cottages 
• Broomhill Manor 
• Wooldown Farm holiday cottages 
• Woodview campsite 

The Ocean Recovery Project, supported by South West Water, supports volunteer beach cleans across Devon and Cornwall. The project has removed more than 190 tonnes of litter from the beach.  If you would like to follow their progress, please follow Ocean Recovery Project on social media: www.facebook.com/oceanrecoveryproject