Beach Guardian is a community interest company based in Padstow, Cornwall, that was co-founded by father and daughter duo: Rob and marine biologist Emily.

Beach Guardian aims to ‘engage, educate and empower against plastic pollution’ and achieves this by working towards 5 key objectives:

- Outreach and Media - hosting community beach cleans for volunteers, various community groups and CSR events for corporations. Additionally, using Beach Guardian’s social media channels as platforms and established collaborations with the wider media to further raise awareness of such imperative issues.

- Education - Beach Guardian S.E.A.L. Workshops (School Education Activities Link) are available for both Primary and Secondary schools, colleges, sixth forms, universities and any other body of education.

- Businesses - working closely and collaboratively within organisations, from all areas, to find solutions, alternatives and reducing reliance on plastics.

- Collaboration - working in positive partnerships with other organisations is integral in Beach Guardian’s ethos, our voices are louder together.

- Research - During Emily’s Marine Biology degree, she wrote a thesis exploring the quantities and sources of plastics stranded on beaches along the North Cornwall coastline. She then analysed the extent of biofouling on these plastics and whether this floating flotsam has the potential to become a vector for invasive species, utilising this substrate as a raft to, perhaps, avoid warming oceanic temperatures due to climate change.

Emily is also currently studying her master’s degree at the University of Exeter, where she is researching the role of microplastics in the dissemination of potentially pathogenic or antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Beach Guardian

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