The Conservatoire du Littoral, a government agency charged with the protection of France’s 2,000-mile coastline, has said that mechanical cleaning methods are destroying the very beaches they’re employed to preserve and are turning a living seashore into a sterile desert.
Violaine Allais, head of scientific studies at the Conservatoire, said mechanical cleaners were unable to distinguish between human jetsam, such as bottles and polythene bags, and natural flotsam such as seaweed, dead fish and drowned birds. “Even if they seem to us to soil the beach, these natural remains are nevertheless an integral part of its biodiversity and should not be removed,” she said.
French mayors have warned that while a poll showed that a majority of beach-users would be willing to share the sands with washed-up natural waste, 37% would go elsewhere — and that’s a lot of unsold ice cream.