Beachcombing with a difference

Volunteering has always been an important part of working at Tyler Grange. It’s something we’ve done since we started the company, and since we adopted a four-day working week, we’ve been able to offer even more help and support to organisations and communities that need it.  

So, our Tribe hit the beach. Not for sunbathing and picnics, unfortunately (though good times were had all round!). This time, we were on three different coastlines to do our bit in tackling one of our environment’s biggest enemies: single-use plastic waste. Here’s what our beach cleaning teams got up to, and how we plan to turn the rubbish we collected into something pretty cool.   

First, we headed to South Wales, to Sandy Bay in Porthcawl, teaming up with the fantastic people at The Beach Academy Wales. These guys are passionate about marine nature and the preservation of our coastlines. They do amazing work through events and education, engaging children and local communities, delivering environmental education, marine science literacy and outdoor learning and events.  

We would like to thank Beach Academy Wales for hosting a really fun day. It was great to learn about their organisation and the conservation work that they do all year round. It was both a wholesome and sobering experience. Wholesome in that we were working together for something positive that would make a real difference.  Sobering to see just how much plastic waste is embedded in our environment. 

We hit the south coast, heading all the way down to Poole beach, working with The Coacoara Foundation, to help clear the beach of unsightly rubbish and protect the marine life there from the harmful single-use plastics that are sadly piling up. The Coacoara Foundation are a local group that organises beach cleans for the public and local businesses. They champion plastic-free products and help to raise awareness of the issues facing our oceans. 

Poole Beach is very popular with tourists, especially during the summer season. After months of heavy use, it accumulates litter and debris. We wanted to step in and help restore the area, protect the local wildlife, and support the community that relies on the beach year-round. 

We got a real sense of the strong community spirit and the positive atmosphere among all the volunteers coming together with a shared purpose. The real success of the day was seeing the visible impact of our efforts. We collected a significant amount of waste, along with the valuable educational moments that helped us better understand the environmental challenges facing the area and the difference collective action can make. 

We were back up north on the golden sands of St Anne’s Beach for a beach clean collaboration with The Kindness Forecast and The Marine Conservation Society. The Kindness Forecast is a self-funded social experiment with a simple mission: to explore and amplify acts of kindness to people and planet. The Marine Conservation Society is the UK’s leading ocean charity, campaigning for cleaner, healthier seas. We can’t think of anyone better to clean up the beach with!  

A very popular tourist location, St Anne’s beach sadly also gets a sizeable amount of litter and plastics left over once the beachgoers have gone home. With guidance from Clare Trotman, Beachwatch Officer at the Marine Conservation Society, we got to work cleaning the beach, surveying the litter and documenting the findings.  

The opportunity to volunteer at three separate beach cleans and see the huge difference they make, first-hand, has certainly been a huge privilege for the Tyler Grange Tribe. Being able to turn all the rubbish and single-use plastics into something useful, well that’s the icing on the cake.  

We’re teaming up with Gomi, collaborating to turn the waste we collected at each clean into new phone cases. Gomi are an amazing company. They produce unique tech and products made entirely from waste materials. All their products are fully repairable, so they’re designed for life – no single-use products here. Gomi are true champions of sustainability. We’re really proud to be working with them, and we can’t wait to see the new phone cases, turning harmful waste plastics into something useful for all of us!  

Want to learn a bit more about our volunteering work? Check out our rewilding work, or read about our work helping the OddArts team transform their outdoor wellbeing space. Or, if you want to have a snoop at everything else going on at Tyler Grange, be our guest!