4 Tons. That's the amount of plastic that has been picked up THIS YEAR by Caithness Beach Cleans.

We have just reached 12.5 Tons and we have not been going for a year yet, but 4 Tons this year. It makes you think.

We don't organise beach cleans, but we do give you scales to anyone who goes for a beach walk and picks up plastic, we only ask that you weigh the plastic you pick up and send a photo to the Facebook group. That is how we KNOW how much plastic we are picking up.

Today, 10 of the group met up for a picnic on Keiss Castle beach, whilst there we also picked up plastic, 970.3lbs of it. A lot of it was old plastic and hopefully the beach will stay clean for a while.

There are many benefits to picking up plastic, one, you are out for a wonderful walk in the fresh air (sometimes very fresh), two, you can lose weight and become fitter (I certainly have), three, you are helping the environment. Basically it's all good. Everyone goes out when suits them, so you commit to nothing, except sending in a photograph of what you pick up.

Some people pick up just 3 pieces of plastic and they think that's not enough to join the group, but if you put those 3 bits in a bag, and add the next 3 bits, you soon have a lb or kg to add to the total.

We now have great statistics of what has been picked up over the last year. You can see those statistics on the group, every now and then we add the updated file. For example 3.5 Tons have been removed from Dunnet over the last year.

Please consider removing plastics from the environment, don't throw it out of your cars or on the ground. Sadly a lot of people do that.

We would love to meet you on a beach some time.