Code red for humanity

With recent news that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report is ‘code red for humanity’, it’s easy to feel helpless and hopeless about the future of our planet. But it’s not all doom and gloom – we know what’s causing the climate crisis (us!) and we can absolutely avoid the worst if we all act now. From buying less plastic and eating less meat, to signing petitions and picking up litter, we can all make a difference to reduce our carbon footprint and help build a better world.

Benefits of A beach clean

Organising a beach clean is something that people of all ages can do to help the environment and mitigate the problems caused by ocean debris, plus there are additional benefits too:

• Protecting our oceans and marine life
• Helping your local community and economy
• Bringing people together
• Exploring your local area
• Getting some good exercise
• Spending time outdoors in the fresh air

Plastic pollution & climate change

Plastic pollution not only poses huge problems to our oceans and marine life, it also plays a significant role in climate change. According to researchers from the IPCC, plastic production and disposal resulted in 850 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 and may be responsible for up to 2.8 billion tons by 2050.

Here at Flexi-Hex®, we are working hard to tackle the plastic crisis by removing plastic from the packaging industry, and creating practical and innovative solutions that will ultimately reduce the amount of plastic being produced in the first place. But with over 8 billion tonnes of plastic already polluting our planet, we realise there's so much more we need to be doing outside of the office too. That's why we decided to organise a team beach clean at one of our local beaches in Cornwall.

Beach Clean day

At around 9am, we arrived at Trenow Cove, a stunning spot just a few miles down the coast from Porthleven and Flexi-Hex HQ. It was a beautiful sunny day – one of few this summer! Armed with gloves and reusable bin bags, our team of 11 (plus our Co-Founder’s 5-year-old son) set off in pairs to roam around the beach.

After about two hours, we couldn’t believe how much litter we had found, from fishing rope and disposable face masks to plastic bottles and even five tyres! A lot of the waste was found trapped between rocks and entangled in seaweed so you can easily see how marine animals get caught up in it. Not only that; we also found a huge amount of microplastics - minute plastic particles that measure less than 5mm in size and can be found everywhere - in our oceans, in the air, in the rain and most worryingly inside us and other living creatures as we unknowingly ingest them. 

As well as collecting heaps of litter, the beach clean was a fun team bonding activity and a great opportunity to spend time together outside of the office. We're looking forward to organising another team beach clean soon, so please get in touch if you know of any beaches in SW Cornwall that need our help!