In 2021, Martin Dorey – writer, campaigner and member of the Advisory Panel for Bude Climate Partnership’s Sustainable Tourism Project, The Bude Way, wrote to Bude businesses about cheap polystyrene bodyboards and the damage they can cause to marine life and our beautiful beaches in Bude when broken and abandoned.

As we know, these boards are not fit for purpose and can break easily, so releasing polystyrene into the ocean environment. This is a big environmental issue.

The Advisory Panel are keen to see a change in the type of boards and beach equipment sold in Bude, especially now that we know we live in one of the most vulnerable places to sea level rise in the UK. Plastic, polystyrene and the health of our beaches and ocean is all a part of this problem.

Happily, a few outlets in Bude have removed the cheaper boards for sale while others, like Bude Sea Pool, Wooda and Zuma Jay, are offering rental wooden bellyboards and bodyboards at extremely low prices. This has helped to reduce the number of boards found on Bude’s beaches. In 2023 The 2 Minute Foundation collected 60 abandoned boards at Crooklets, with 75% of them being of the cheaper quality. While still unacceptable, this is a great improvement on previous years.

Sadly, we are seeing a resurgence of cheap polystyrene bodyboards on Bude’s high street with some retailers selling what we would refer to as the worst of the worst in terms of harmful single-use boards made from one single layer of thin polyester over a slab of polystyrene.

Earlier this year we reached out to Bude businesses again, asking them to share their experience and knowledge with us on how the campaign is going. And to continue their support of our pledge to remove cheap polystyrene bodyboards from sale in Bude.

We have included a downloadable link to the letter in full so you can see what we’re doing to try to reduce Bude’s environmental impact. For now we’re keeping it to ourselves who we’ve written to as we want to give businesses the benefit of the doubt and time to respond. However, we will publish our findings soon, and you will be able to see the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to sustainable practice.

Let’s Hold Bude Close and say NO to cheap polystyrene bodyboards. Together we can achieve more in reducing our plastic pollution.