The Southend beach clean stop has been organised by Southend Beach Care Group and Shoebury Resident’s Association, with both groups leading local beach cleans, with Southend Beach Care Group providing all the cleaning equipment for the event.

Keith McGurk, Regional Director for Veolia, said: “ This summer, Veolia teams are cleaning beaches every morning, making sure they are nice and tidy to welcome residents and day-visitors that have come to enjoy the beach in Southend-on-Sea.

“We are always happy to support community litter-picking initiatives, providing equipment and collecting bags. We are delighted to support Kiko’s amazing challenge when she stops in Southend.”

Suzanne Gloyne, Manager of Southend Business Improvement District (BID), said: “The Kik-Plastic 2019 campaign is a brilliant and environmentally-friendly way of highlighting the myriad problems caused by single-use plastics. Southend BID has already installed a number of measures to help reduce littering, such as the GumDrop chewing gum bins and Ballot bins which collect cigarette butts, while in January, we introduced the Refill scheme into Southend, which encourages people to top up their bottles, containers or flasks with free tap water at participating outlets. This is part of our commitment to heavily reduce our reliance on single-use plastic.

“Kiko’s visit and the beach clean activity are timely reminders that there is still much work to be done and that we all have a responsibility to look after the places where we live and visit, especially coastal areas, where marine life is particularly vulnerable to plastic waste.”