Who & What is Beach Guardian?

Beach Guardian CIC is a Community Interest Company based in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It was co-founded by father and daughter duo: Rob and Marine Biologist Emily. Over the years regular beach cleaning has been done to collect and remove rubbish from the beaches; mainly plastics washing in from the ocean on the tide. We now organise community beach cleans and conduct educational workshops with schools and other groups to connect people with the environment to improve health and well being of both people and planet.

Emily Stevenson

Emily has been picking up plastics from beaches in Cornwall for over half her life. Living by the sea, Emily was witnessing first hand the destruction happening on the beaches, in the seas and to marine life. 

When she was just 11, Emily was given a school project to create some art inspired by the beach and really took this assignment and made it her own. Instead of looking at the natural items on the beach as many of her classmates did, she focused on the unnatural, the plastics. Her idea was to make something attractive from something damaging, destructive and unpleasant. Changing the wasteful mindset.

“Having been lucky enough to grow up in North Cornwall, I have always felt a deep connection to the natural environment. It was this connection that made me feel such a great duty of stewardship for the world’s oceans and that gave me the desire to protect it from a young age.”

Since then she has been on the beach every day possible, watching the plastic problem change and multiply into the severe issue that we know it to be today. She have seen the consequences of convenience and consumerism.  It was this that led Emily to study marine biology, so that she could gain a better understanding of the marine environment and how the plastics were effecting even the smallest of organisms. This is where Beach Guardian comes in. Emily and her dad Rob, started Beach Guardian together as a platform to organise community beach cleans, engage with businesses and MPs and educate and raise awareness of plastic pollution. In addition, educate and empower the next generations by providing educational workshops in schools.

In January 2018, she was featured on the front page of the Telegraph holding a Walkers Crisp packet that was the same age as Emily at the time… 21 years old! When she found this laying in the sand dunes it broke her heart. So this is why Emily made the ‘Walkers Crisp Dress’ and wore it to her graduation. The dress achieved the exact effect, people were finally talking. Subsequently Emily was interviewed live on BBC spotlight and Sky news, and featured in media across the globe.  This is when she suggested that Walkers, at the very least, should offer a recycling scheme, so people can collect their crisp packets and send them off to be recycled. Low and behold, in December 2018, they announced this very scheme nationally; proving that one individual can make a difference. Imagine what we can do together?!

Emily understands that collaboration is vital and so has become an Ambassador for: Plastic Oceans UK, Shark Trust, Clean Ocean App, Keep Britain Tidy, Big Blue Ocean Cleanup and MARINElife 

Emily has more recently developed her work to help young, and older, people with mental health issues. Having worked closely with ‘The Thrive Programme’, she is now working tirelessly to engage individuals, that struggle with mental health and well-being, back with their natural environment. This in turn will aid their sense of self worth, self confidence and general happiness, as well as teaching those to care for the natural environment and oneself equally.

Emily is now studying her Masters degree at the University of Exeter in Conservation Science and Policy. During her studies she will conduct a research project assessing bacterial colonisation of various microplastics sourced from differing environments, to evaluate the potential spread of pathogenic species such as E.coli.

Rob Stevenson

Rob has a clear passion for all things outdoors and nature; in particular, his home in Cornwall. Not only is he a key partner withing Beach Guardian, he also is often involved with other local initiatives such as tree planting, regeneration of dilapidated buildings and natural areas and volunteering with AgeUK and helping organise fundraising events.

Rob has been instrumental in securing partnerships, collaborations and premises for Beach Guardian to use including their ‘Beach Guardian Lab’ at Trevisker Garden Centre in Padstow and ‘E.R.I.C’ their mission centre in Trevone with thanks to Prideaux Place, the Prideaux-Brune family and Savills for helping to make this happen.

Rob really is an organiser extraordinaire; tirelessly helping to  organise Beach Guardian’s events, the calendar, lots of admin, booking school workshops and attending important environmental meetings with businesses and, together with Emily, encouraging legislative changes with local and national government…and not forgetting helping remove huge amounts of ghostnet gear from their local beaches.

Beach Guardian beach cleans have been reported on TV and across media platforms, with over 1 million views,  to increase the awareness of the issue of littering on beaches but also with the marine plastics that get washed up on every tide; ITV News reported live with them on World Oceans Day for example. Additionally, their social media presence is ever growing, with a following of over 10,000 people across channels and an outreach of 1.2 million in their first year on Facebook alone. Rob has been a key factor regarding raising wider awareness not only of all the wonderful community achievements of Beach Guardian but also key environmental issues across media channels and via local networking.

There’s a growing educational element to Beach Guardian CIC which includes having engaged with 5,000 school children in their first year, engaging with businesses, and collaborating with local councils and Cornwall Council to help as many people as possible understand the issue, reduce the amount of unnecessary plastics and how to recycle more. They offer to hold workshops with all of the schools across Cornwall, free of charge, within the next 3 years

Together, Rob and Emily are a super sonic team. They have some super exciting plans for the future too so keep an eye on their Facebook page and all their news!

Our Core Aims & Objectives

  • Organise more regular, organised, community Beach Cleans

  • To host S.E.A.L. (School Education Activities Link) educational events to discuss the impact on our local beaches and seas from plastics in the oceans; so pupils develop care and concern for their natural environment

  • Encourage more local people to do beach cleans, which in turn benefits mental health and well being as well as the environment

  • To encourage Harbours and fishermen to engage in the “Fishing for Litter” initiative and to work closely with the fishing industry to reduce the impacts of ghost fishing gear

  • To maintain strong relationships with local/national/global media and to continue to provide interesting and thought-provoking news stories to achieve a further outreach

  • Engage, educate and empower individuals across the globe through social media platforms

  • To attend global networking and profiling events to collaborate and build relationships with other like-minded individuals to collectively speak with a louder voice

  • To work with Universities and other research-based institutions to find solutions to the plastic problem

  • To work with holiday companies e.g. Cornish Horizons to ensure that visitors to Cornwall engage and are aware of Beach Guardian and other initiatives

  • To help businesses reduce their reliance on unnecessary plastics

  • Produce world class research monitoring the biofouling of marine plastics and migrations of invasive species

  • Work closely with local councils, MPs and government to implement vital changes to legislation

  • To inspire individuals to make positive changes and work for what they believe in

What Do We Want To Achieve?

At Beach Guardian, we aim to ‘engage, educate and empower against plastic pollution’. A large proportion of our work involves organising community beach cleans. Whatever we find on the beaches, we keep. We take everything back to our lab where we clean it, sort it into colours and use it as a resource for educational art projects in local schools. This exercise allows the children to alter their wasteful mindsets in viewing waste as an exciting resource, giving something useless a use.

We also work with businesses ranging from small, local independents to some of the largest companies in the world. For example, Nissan spent a few weeks with us earlier last year and now give all of their employees worldwide 2 days of volunteering each year as well as offering support to beach cleaning groups worldwide. They made a 2 minute film about our work and our community, offer continued support of Beach Guardian and also use a greater amount of recycled plastics in all of their vehicles.

Engage

We are very active on our social media. Check out Emily's Tune In Tues and our Our Future My Voice vlogs

Our video blogs can be found on our Facebook page and YouTube. Please also follow us on Instagram & Twitter to keep up to date with all our adventures, events and initiatives.

Empower

We organise regular community beach cleans and other events so please get involved and join us!

Our beach cleans are very family friendly. All equipment for our beach cleans is provided and we organise removing any waste we collect. Please wear sensible clothing for the Cornish outdoors…we get nearly all weathers in one day sometimes! Check out all our events and see which ones you can join us on. We look forward to seeing you.

Educate

We host and organise S.E.A.L (Schools Educational Activities Link) workshops. Would you like us to come into your school?

Our school workshops are flexible but usually start with a full assembly, then a 90 -120 minute session. The assembly and workshop session are FREE of charge to Cornwall schools. Dates are throughout school term times but subject to availability. So to reserve your session, please either email seal@beachguardian.co.uk or call 01841 521132.

CHECK OUT ALL OUR EVENTS