Every first Tuesday of the month a group gathers at the Gallivant in Camber. Some residents of Rye, Camber and surrounding areas, some venturing from as far as Bexhill and Tunbridge Wells. We get together with a simple aim: to clean up Camber Sands.
The morning starts at 10am with tea and coffee at the Gallivant, where we all load up with litter pickers, gloves, bin bags and bag holders; much of this equipment kindly lent to us by Rother District Council. We then walk together to the beach, sometimes we tackle the car park, sometimes along Old Lydd Road, but most often we head over onto the sands itself.

What we find depends on the season. If it’s been very windy, we often head up into the dunes where we find what we sometimes call “wind rubbish” – the little bits of plastic, wrappers, wristbands, cups that get blown into the dune grasses and trapped there.
In the summer months, when there are many visitors to Camber Sands, the tractors do a fantastic job in the early morning of raking up the rubbish from the flat portion of the beach, so we tend to again take to the dunes where we find all sorts – lots of cigarette butts, beer bottles, barbecues, whole bags of rubbish semi-buried. But we even find unusual things left behind like half a pair of designer shoes, a pandora bracelet, and a rosary (these things of course get handed into wherever the closest kiosk / office is… unless barnacles have already started to grow!) The largest thing we found was a whole engagement set up with heart shaped metal arch and hundreds of fake flowers, buried in the sand.
In an ideal world of course, people would take away their rubbish, and I think thankfully many do. However, even in the quieter, winter months (oh yes, we beach clean even in wind and rain!) we’re often surprised at just how much rubbish we still collect. Currently we’re collecting a lot of fishing waste, bright coloured rope and lobster pots, things that if we didn’t take away from the beach would end up back in the sea when the tide rises.

After about an hour of litter picking, we all head back to the Gallivant where the kitchen team kindly cook up free brunch snacks for everyone like sourdough cheese toasties, or mushroom and spinach buns! It’s a fantastic morning spent doing something good and making new friends in the meantime.
All are welcome to our monthly Community Beach Clean, however we ask that you sign up via our website so that we know how many snacks to prepare! Note the Gallivant welcomes all aged 16 and over.
The next beach clean is on Tuesday February 4 starting at 10am, meeting at the Gallivant.
Any questions, feel free to email India at india@thegallivant.co.uk.
Image Credits: India Williams .