A TOURIST has spoken of his shock at finding about 300 items of rubbish on Petit Port beach.

Chris Clayton, 47, from Chester, and his wife spent a fortnight’s holiday in the island, staying in St Martin’s.

He collected a cubic metre of rubbish, weighing 25kg, in just 90 minutes.

Mr Clayton could not believe the amount of rubbish that had been washed ashore.

‘My wife went off for a walk and I got bored,’ he said. ‘On the beach, left behind by the tide, I found one of those white polypropylene woven cube-shaped one cubic metre bags which builders’ merchants deliver sand to building sites in and I started collecting rubbish to clean up the beach as something to do.

‘To my amazement, I was able to completely fill it with rubbish from the beach in about 90 minutes. I was amazed that there was so much rubbish on the beach. I reckon it was about 300 individual items.’

Mr Clayton was concerned about the impact the rubbish could have on local wildlife.

‘I’d hate to think of it choking seals or fish or birds,’ he said. Someone saw a seal off Petit Port on the same day as Mr Clayton’s low-tide clean-up.