Discarded bodyboards litter Cornish beach

Bodyboards
Discarded polystyrene bodyboards

About 600 broken bodyboards collected from beaches over the summer are being stacked high to highlight the amount of waste they create.

Primary school-children have covered an area of 2,700 sq ft with the boards at Bude beach in Cornwall.

The polystyrene boards were removed from three beaches in the South West in August by Keep Britain Tidy's BeachCare programme.

University students will use them to create a more eco-friendly design.

BeachCare said there could be tens of thousands of abandoned bodyboards on beaches across the country
Primary school children have helped to pile up the boards
The 600 bodyboards have been displayed on bude beach
Neil Hembrow from BeachCare said the boards end up in landfill

Neil Hembrow, BeachCare Officer said: "If we collected these UK wide we would have a huge warehouse full.

"They are manufactured in China, shipped over 5000 miles and surfed for 10 minutes before breaking and going to landfill - it is such an incredible waste".

BeachCare calculates that if 200 boards were discarded on every beach across the South West, that would equate to over 28,000 boards filling up landfill sites.

The organisation is urging people to buy more expensive boards which will last longer.

More on this story