• Clean Coasts are encouraging people in Cork in to pledge to do a #2minutebeachclean as their New Year’s Resolution and are giving out free kits 

New Year, New You: The end of the year is always the best time to start thinking about what we want to achieve in the next year and to write down our New Year’s resolutions. Despite our best intentions, these resolutions can sometimes be hard to stick to.  

With climate change and climate action being hot topics at the moment, some people might choose for their  New Year’s Resolution in 2023 to be greener and help our planet and marine environment. However, making a huge commitment or pledging to do too many things to be greener in the New Year can feel overwhelming and could end up discouraging people from achieving their goals.  

For this reason, with the “New Year, New You” video campaign, Clean Coasts are asking people in Cork to choose a realistic and achievable New Year’s resolution, that people can stick to through the year: a #2minutebeachclean. 

The video – produced by Clean Coasts and Cube Media – shows Dave (played by Bryan Quinn) trying to go into 2023 being better and greener by being more conscious of the environment. However, after several failed attempts, he begins to lose hope until he finds himself on a #2minutebeachclean board on the beach and realises that being green can be just as simple. 

We have all seen marine litter along Ireland’s coastline and for all the beach lovers out there, the new year is an opportunity to do something about it in just 2 minutes!  

Taking part in the campaign entails taking two minutes when you are outdoors to remove litter that you see along the way. We ask for all participants to share images of what they collect on social media, adding the #2minutebeachclean hashtag to the photos to spread the word and inspire more people to take action.  

The campaign’s aim is to let people know that they don’t need commit to a huge New Year’s resolution that they may not be able to sustain to the end of the year, but a #2minutebeachclean is an easy pledge to make that is flexible, doable and can be built on as your green year moves forward. 

To help people stick to their pledge, Clean Coasts is giving away #2minutebeachclean kits to the first 200 people to pledge to this New Year’s Resolution. 

Sinead McCoy, Coastal Community Manager, said: 

The #2minutebeachclean is such a great initiative to get involved in. People may think 2 minutes is a very short time to make a difference, but small actions add up to make a big difference. Every piece of plastic removed from the marine environment is no longer a danger to our marine life and environment. Each #2minutebeachclean is estimated to weigh in at 1-2KG. If everybody in Ireland does a #2minutebeachclean per month in 2023, that’s over 100,000 tonnes of litter removed from our ocean.