For the fourth year now, a team of like-minded staff, friends, family and patients of Physio-logical gathered together to do their bit to tackle plastic pollution along one of our local beaches.

On a not-so sunny September morning a group of us took to the beachfront on Hayling Island armed with litter pickers, gloves and bin bags.

We spent 2 hours trawling along the shoreline and surrounding beach front, and collected a total of 9 bags of rubbish, including items such as carpet, glasses, barbed wire, lots of plastic, polystyrene and rope.

As a local clinic, based in Rowlands Castle, we are always striving to become more eco-friendly and our annual beach clean is a great way of doing our bit for the planet as well as our local area.

Why did we decide to start doing a Beach Clean?

The beach cleans began off the back of a Facebook group, Challenge 30, created by physiotherapist Natalie March during lockdown to keep morale up and patients active.

Members of the group had to complete a bingo card of activities each month, including sunrise and sunset walks, litter picking, local walking routes and exercise challenges.

Natalie said: ‘We found that the monthly challenges brought people together, so we wanted to put something in place that allowed people to meet face-to-face when lockdown restrictions eased, which is why we did the first beach clean. It was such a success that we decided to make it an annual tradition, to bring people together but also to look after the local beaches and the environment as a whole.’