A GROUP of avid beachcombers from Bude made an unusual delivery on Sunday — a 30-metre chain of approximately 3,200 bottle-tops.

The chain was handed over to Rame Peninsula Beach Care, the group co-ordinating the initiative, which has now collected chains measuring around 400m, containing tens of thousands of bottle-tops, from all over Cornwall.

Claire Wallerstein, of Rame Peninsula Beach Care, said: "We decided to focus on bottle tops because they are such a common, everyday item. In the UK we throw away around 15 million plastic bottles per day.

"Designed to be used for a few minutes but made from a material that will never rot, disposable plastic bottle tops and pieces are now the single most identifiable piece of marine litter on our beaches — less than 50 years after they first went widely on sale."

There is a strong beach cleaning community in the Bude area that has grown into a veritable army supporting Widemouth Task Force, Crooklets Recycling and Picking and the #2minutebeachclean initiative.

Together they have been scouring local beaches over the past three months to collect bottle tops as part of a Cornwall-wide campaign to raise awareness about the ever-growing problem of marine litter and call for stronger policies to tackle it.

For the full report, and a round-up of the area news and sport, see this week's edition of the Post.