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Beach Buddies was founded in October 2006 when two people were walking the beach with their dogs at Kirk Michael on the west coast of the Isle of Man in the British Isles.
Until then, no one had any idea of the scale of the problem facing the Isle of Man. Within a few weeks two people had collected hundreds of bags of rubbish, some of the materials dating back as far as 30 years.
It was then clear that the Isle of Man had a massive problem with rubbish on its beautiful beaches. A decision was made – ‘It’s not enough to just stand and stare.’
September 2010 - Facebook Page Created
After operating on a very small scale for several years, Beach Buddies decided to use social media to try to attract more volunteers to get involved, chiefly through our Facebook page Beach Buddies Isle of Man.
Early 2012 - First event held
The first Beach Buddies’ team event happened early in 2012 at Fisher’s Hill, Castletown. To our pleasant surprise, 34 people turned up. We published the story in the newspapers and on radio. The following week we went north to Ballaugh Cronk and a completely new group of more than 40 joined in. We had started something special.
End of 2012 - Over 1,500 volunteers
By the end of 2012, we had been joined by almost 1,500 volunteers. Companies, Scouts, Guides, schools, clubs, sports clubs all wanted to get involved.
End of 2015 - Volunteers surpassed 6,000
At the end of 2015, the number of different volunteers who had taken part in Beach Buddies’ events surpassed 6,000.
2016 - Another 1,000 new volunteers
Another 1,000 new volunteers were added during 2016
August 2017 - Over 8,000 volunteers
By the end of August 2017 the total passed another landmark at 8,000. And that’s without counting the army of “Unknown Volunteers” who fill our bins all around the Isle of Man
Miles of Coastline Cleaned
Beach Buddies has been asked to speak about its achievements at Universities across the world. Invitations have come from Ohio, California, New York, Washington, Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia and across the United Kingdom.
It appears that Beach Buddies has found a very simple, but effective, method of keeping beaches free from marine litter, and the rest of the world is watching.
Our method is simple – get small teams of friends and like-minded people together, host events, try to find some small sponsorship to buy basic equipment, tell your local politicians and the local media what you are doing and then just get started!
That’s what we did in the Isle of Man, and Beach Buddies is now being recognised around the world for what it has achieved.