Petition to ban cheap polystyrene bodyboards
Recently Westward Ho! in Devon became the first place to ban the cheap and very fragile polystyrene bodyboards known as "snappers".
There is now a petition for a national ban on this particular type of expanded polystyrene bodyboard, which are unfit for purpose and 16,000 of them were left on beaches last year alone! The petition has been started by a cooperation between Plastic Free Torridge, Plastic Free North Devon and Keep Britain Tidy's Ocean Recovery Project.
The expanded polystyrene bodyboards are very fragile and are either bare polystyrene or covered in a fabric wrap, that does little to improve their resilience. When the boards fail, they not only disappoint the user, but shower the beach an ocean in thousands of pieces of microplastics, which can then be mistaken for food by sea creatures.
We must be very clear, this is not about banning bodyboards full stop, we love bodyboarding at Non Plastic Beach! The aim of this is to encourage people to buy or rent decent quality boards from independent shops which can be enjoyed many times over, rather than a cheap supermarket board that can break after minutes in the sea.
We believe this will cut out a source of plastic pollution and leave room in beach bins for rubbish, instead of being jammed full of broken boogie board! Sign the petition on the UK parliament website here and remember you need to click the confirm button in the email they send you to confirm it is a real email address: HERE
