'50% rise' in wet wipes littering Britain's beaches

Britain's beaches are becoming increasingly littered with wet wipes that people are flushing down the toilet, conservationists have warned.

The number of wet wipes found in the Marine Conservation Society's annual "Great British beach clean" increased by some 50% in a year as more people use them, the charity said.

The annual survey also revealed a 6.4% increase in overall beach litter between 2013 and 2014, prompting the charity to call on the Government to do more to tackle rubbish in the country's seas and on its beaches.

The most commonly-collected type of rubbish was pieces of plastic - 10% of the litter collected was plastic drink bottles and aluminium drinks cans and 11% was related to commercial and recreational fishing.

MCS beachwatch officer Charlotte Coombes said the UK's sewers were not built to cope with wet wipes - which have also been causing a problem elsewhere in the world.

"When flushed they don't disintegrate like toilet paper, and they typically contain plastic so once they reach the sea, they last for a very long time," Coombes said.

In Wales, two and a half times more litter was collected per kilometre of beach than the national average, an increase of 46% on 2013.

Beaches in the South West had the highest amounts of rubbish in England, but litter levels dropped on both the east and west coasts of northern England, and there was an 8% fall in rubbish per kilometre of beach surveyed in Scotland, the survey found.

Litter levels also appear to be declining in Northern Ireland.