The Paddle for Plastic campaign was launched by Rob Thompson, the founder and former chair of Fathoms Free and Director of Odyssey Innovation, to recover and recycle plastic from these otherwise inaccessible places, and in doing so, to raise awareness to the scale of the problem. It is a regular occurrence that we launch from a clean public access beach and only make it a couple of hundred meters away from civilization before gathering such large quantities of marine plastic that we have to turn back with it. It’s really important to keep these inaccessible places clean, as the lack of human activity often make them a haven for wildlife, this increases the risk to wildlife of entanglement in, or ingestion of plastic even further.

Now we need your help to rid our seas of marine plastic. Please help us by joining a Paddle for Plastic event, or alternatively, do your own paddle for plastic. It can be a simple as taking a few minutes to give something back to nature, by picking up some litter on your return paddling journey. You can paddle on kayaks, stand up paddle board, surfboards, boats or anything you can think of to reach those otherwise inaccessible places to clear marine debris. We would love to hear about your paddle for plastic adventures! Please share your stories or photos with us on social media in the hope that your work may inspire others to take action.