A broken fishing trap, an empty sack and two hours in the shallow water at Sa Coma gave British holidaymaker Gregg Thompson an idea. Now he wants visitors around the world to spend a few minutes caring for the beaches they have travelled to enjoy.

The unexpected discovery that changed Gregg’s holiday

When Gregg Thompson travelled to Mallorca with his wife, Rebecca, the plan was to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary, enjoy a few child-free days and then return home to their kids, Oscar and Phoebe.

Gregg had visited Mallorca once before, but this was his first stay in the Sa Coma area. On the final beach day of the holiday, he left his sunbed and went into the sea for a swim.

Gregg admits he is not particularly good at sitting still for an entire day. A swim gave him something to do while still making the most of the sunshine and clear water. He certainly did not go into the sea intending to collect rubbish, launch an environmental project or write a business plan… Then he noticed what appeared to be a broken fishing trap floating in the water.

His first thought was simply to carry it back to the beach and dispose of it properly. Once he had picked it up, however, he began to notice everything else drifting around him. Bottle tops and pieces of plastic were moving through the water. Some of the debris floated just below the surface, making it less obvious from the beach but very noticeable to somebody swimming amongst it. “I thought I would do my bit and take the trap in,” Gregg told Majorca Mallorca. “Then I started noticing all the other floating rubbish that was in the sea. There was more than I was expecting.”

A sack appeared at exactly the right moment

As Gregg continued swimming, an empty sack floated past him. It seemed to arrive just when he needed something in which to place the rubbish he was finding. So, he opened the sack and started collecting. What began with one damaged fishing trap continued for approximately two hours. Gregg walked backwards and forwards through the shallows, sometimes waist or chest-deep in the water, picking up pieces of plastic from the sea and shoreline.

Importantly, he did not feel as though he had abandoned his holiday to undertake a gruelling environmental mission. He was still outside, enjoying the water and spending the day at the beach. The difference was that he was also removing rubbish as he went. That experience would later become central to the Cleaner Seas Collective concept. Gregg does not expect holidaymakers to surrender a day of their trip or attend a scheduled event. He wants to make it easy for people to act while they are already beside the sea.

“You’re still getting the sun and enjoying yourself,” he said. “People could do five minutes, an hour or the whole afternoon if they wanted to.”

The beach looked clean, but the water told a different story

Gregg is keen to point out that Sa Coma beach did not appear neglected. He was impressed by the bins and recycling facilities available nearby, and he was able to dispose of what he collected appropriately. The rubbish he found was primarily in the sea or moving along the shoreline. It was not necessarily waste left by people sitting on the beach that day. Marine litter can travel significant distances before currents and waves bring it into a bay.

From a sunbed, the beach may have appeared perfectly clean. From inside the water, Gregg had a different view.

Some pieces washed towards the shore before being pulled back out again. Others floated below the surface and brushed against him as he swam. It made him realise how much plastic may be present without being immediately visible to people on land.

One person’s actions encouraged others

Gregg’s unusual activity did not go unnoticed. There were many other people enjoying the beach, and some began watching the man walking through the water with a sack of rubbish. Two women started picking up items and passing them to him. Other people thanked him.

This spontaneous response made Gregg consider the wider effect of taking visible action. Removing one bag of rubbish would make a tangible difference, but doing it in front of hundreds of people could also encourage somebody else to look more carefully at the beach and water around them.

The value was not only in the amount collected. It was also in showing that a visitor could help care for the destination they were enjoying.

For Mallorca, where conversations about tourism increasingly include pressure on natural resources and the responsibilities of visitors, that message has particular relevance. Tourism does not have to be a passive exchange in which people arrive, consume an experience and leave. Visitors can also make a small, positive contribution to the places hosting them.

Gregg believes children and families could be especially important to the project.

“If children see families and other holidaymakers doing it, they know it isn’t acceptable for litter to be in the sea,” he said. “The visual side of it can be as powerful as the act itself.”

Cleaner Seas Collective takes shape at Palma Airport

The idea stayed with Gregg for the rest of the day. While sitting on a sunbed after the clean-up, he wondered whether local businesses could help recognise people who took part.

It did not have to involve a major prize. A bar might offer somebody a cold drink after noticing their effort, for example. A hotel could provide guests with collection sacks. Tour operators and travel companies might help spread the message or sponsor incentives.

Gregg and Rebecca flew home the following day. Like many package-holiday travellers, they arrived at Palma Airport with plenty of time to spare before their flight.

Gregg used that waiting time to write a business plan.

By the time he left Mallorca, an unplanned swim had become Cleaner Seas Collective, a community-led initiative that Gregg now hopes to establish as a Community Interest Company in the UK.

How does Cleaner Seas Collective work?

The model is intentionally uncomplicated:

People request a free Cleaner Seas Collective collection sack before travelling. The sack is light, folds down small enough to fit easily inside a suitcase and can be taken to any coastal destination.

During the holiday, the participant spends as much or as little time collecting litter as they choose. This could mean picking up plastic during a five-minute walk along the water’s edge or spending longer cleaning a particular stretch of beach.

There is no organised meeting, fixed starting time or group commitment.

Once finished, participants dispose of the rubbish responsibly and separate recyclable materials wherever suitable facilities are available. They can then share a photograph with the Cleaner Seas Collective community, together with the location and details of what they collected.

The aim is not to pressure holidaymakers or make them feel guilty about visiting coastal destinations. It is to offer them a practical way to help.

“The target audience is people who are already on the beach,” Gregg explained. “There is no event you need to join and no organised litter collection. It is a case of: I’m here, I’ve got this and I can make a bit of a difference.”

What should participants collect?

Cleaner Seas Collective is focused on ordinary, safe pieces of marine litter, including plastic bottles, bottle tops, packaging and other items that can be handled without risk.

Participants should not pick up sharp objects, medical waste, unidentified substances, dog waste or anything potentially hazardous. Children must be supervised and should only collect safe items.

Dangerous objects should be reported to the lifeguard, beach marshal, police or relevant local authority rather than placed inside the sack.

Nobody should put themselves at risk by entering rough water, swimming after debris or attempting to retrieve large or heavy objects. The project is intended to fit safely around an ordinary beach visit.

The first pilot bag returns to Mallorca

Fittingly, the first Cleaner Seas Collective pilot bag to be used on holiday travelled back to the island where the idea began.

Ethan and his family took their bag to one of the small cove beaches near Cala d’Or. While swimming and enjoying the cove, they collected plastic bottles and other pieces of litter from the water and surrounding area.

The photograph of Ethan standing in the clear Mallorcan sea with the Cleaner Seas Collective sack provided Gregg with the first evidence that the idea could work beyond his own experience in Sa Coma.

One bag had completed its first journey. Now more are being sent out to other participants and destinations.

Gregg hopes that at least 50 people will take part in the initial summer pilot. Their photographs and reports will help him understand how people use the sacks, where clean-ups take place and what types of waste they find.

The information could also help Cleaner Seas Collective demonstrate its potential to prospective sponsors and tourism partners.

From Mallorca to a worldwide impact map

Although the project was inspired by Mallorca, the sacks can travel anywhere.

Gregg is willing to send one to somebody visiting another Spanish island, the British coast or a beach on the other side of the world. The location does not matter. The principle remains the same. His long-term plan includes the development of a dedicated digital platform. Participants would scan a QR code, upload a photograph and record information about their activity. Each clean-up could then be displayed on an interactive map.

If the project grows as Gregg hopes, the map could eventually show thousands of individual actions taking place across different coastal destinations. It would also allow Cleaner Seas Collective to measure its impact, including the number of participants, clean-ups completed, locations reached and estimated quantity of waste removed.

“There could be thousands of pins showing where litter has been collected,” Gregg said. “The data from that would be amazing.”

A role for Mallorca’s hotels and tourism businesses

Gregg would particularly like the project to develop in Mallorca and hopes to work with Protur Hotels, the hotel group with which he stayed when the idea was born. Rather than posting sacks individually from the UK, participating hotels could keep a supply for guests. A visitor who wanted to take part could collect one from reception, use it during the holiday and share the result online. Bars, restaurants, activity providers and other local businesses could also support the initiative.

Some might act as collection or distribution points. Others could offer a small gesture to participants or help fund the bags. Larger travel businesses could potentially sponsor prizes, although Gregg is clear that rewards should encourage participation rather than become the reason for it. The environmental benefit still matters even when somebody collects rubbish without photographing it or adding it to the project’s data. The sea does not care whether the clean-up appeared online.

Small effort, visible difference

Cleaner Seas Collective is not intended to replace the organised beach-cleaning groups already doing important work in Mallorca and elsewhere. Its purpose is different.

Gregg wants to reach the people who may never sign up for an official clean-up but would happily spend a few minutes helping if somebody placed the means to do so in their hands.

“The aim is to bring together people who want to make a small difference while enjoying time by the sea,” he said.

“There are no organised beach cleans, no pressure, no guilt and no expectation that you become an eco-warrior. It is simply about ordinary people spending a few minutes helping the beaches they already love.”

That ordinary quality may prove to be the project’s strength. Cleaner Seas Collective began without a committee, campaign strategy or organised event. It began because one holidaymaker saw something floating in the sea and decided not to leave it there.

How to request a free Cleaner Seas Collective bag

The Cleaner Seas Collective pilot is taking place now. Gregg is looking for holidaymakers who would like to take a bag on their next coastal trip, as well as hotels, tourism businesses, sponsors and environmental organisations interested in supporting the initiative.

Taking part involves five simple steps:

1. Request a free Cleaner Seas Collective bag.
2. Pack it for your next visit to the coast.
3. Spend five or ten minutes collecting suitable, safe litter.
4. Dispose of everything responsibly, recycling where possible.
5. Share a photograph and tell the community where the bag travelled.

To request a pilot bag, offer support or discuss a partnership, contact Gregg Thompson at gregg@cleanerseascollective.org. or join the Facebook group here . 

---

This post may contain affiliate links that help support Majorca Mallorca in creating content like this. If you make a purchase using one of these links, Majorca Mallorca may receive compensation at no extra cost to you. Read our disclosure for more information.  

---