We sat down with Martin Dorey the founder of the campaign #2minutebeachclean, and the writer of “No. More. Plastic” and “Take the Slow Road: Scotland” to discuss his inspiration and drive behind his successful campaign and why he believes that ; Everyone has 2 minutes. You’ll be surprised what a difference it can make.
Why did you start #2minutebeachclean
It was a project that was a long time being developed. It was a reaction to finding a beach near my house covered in plastic bottles in September 2007. That was the one moment when I vowed to do something, anything, to clear up. I organised a clean up with my local school, which then led to the formation of the Beach Clean Network in 2009. The campaign proper came about in 2013 after huge Atlantic storms caused havoc on Cornish beaches. I went to the beach, helped with the clean up and just kept going back when I could to pick a bit at a time. I came up with and started using the hashtag in November 2013 and it went on from there. By summer 2014 we had begun a trial of our beach clean boards and by 2015 we had passed 10k posts to Instagram.
What does the campaign do today?
We continue to inspire thousands of people around the world to pick up whenever they go to a beach or open space. We now have over 550 beach clean stations around the UK and Ireland and have passed the 100K mark on Instagram. We work with corporates to develop ideas around marine litter and are always looking for ways to close the loop on waste, improve our network and get more plastic out of the ocean.
How can we get involved?
Just go and do it!!! Take 2 minutes to pick up litter every where you go, take a picture and then tag it on Instagram or Twitter. You could also use our APP to log litter you pick and then assign it to your space or one of our local stations. All our board locations are marked on the website and app.
How does the future look?
It’s looking ok at the moment, providing we can keep paying the phone bill! As an NGO our struggle to finance our campaigns is constant but that’s back room stuff. We are working all the time on projects to improve our network, inspire more people and get that litter out of the ocean. We are also working to close the loop on litter, putting out new boards, going inland with the #2minutelitterpick and #2minutestreetclean, and generally continuing to inspire change at every level we can.
Discover more on https://beachclean.net