A BEACH group has been left astounded and shocked by the amount of plastic found in just one small cove. Volunteers from Rame Peninsula Beach Care collected 576,664 individual pieces of plastic from the cove on Tregantle beach at Whitsand Bay. The beach cleaners counted the plastic debris as part of a University of Exeter project to map beach litter. The aims were to try to remove every single piece of plastic from the cove then to sort, count and categorise the types of waste found, before seeing how long the cove took to fill up again. Claire Wallerstein, of the beach care group, said: 'We knew there was going to be a lot of plastic but we had no idea quite how much. 'In total we collected 576,664 individual pieces of plastic. 'The area we covered really was tiny when you look at the beach as a whole, and it is pretty mind-boggling when you think that there were probably several hundred thousand more pieces we were unable to pick up before the tide came in. 'Most of the individual pieces of plastic were very small degraded fragments and also tiny nurdles – pre-production plastic resin pellets, which are shipped worldwide as the raw material for all our plastic products. 'However, the almost endless list of other items totted up after a gruelling two-week sorting and counting process also included: a toilet seat a Canadian lobster pot tag two rolls of sticky tape 25 shoes 2,768 bottle tops 500 pieces of fishing net and rope 583 shotgun cartridges 156 cigarette lighters 1,310 cottonbud sticks three plastic moustaches 42 pieces of Lego from a container lost at sea from the ship Tokio Express in 1997. 'Plastic on our beaches and in the sea is much more than just an eyesore. 'The United Nations estimates that one million seabirds and at least 100,000 whales, dolphins, seals and turtles die each year after mistaking plastic for food or becoming entangled in it. This is happening right on our doorstep too. 'A dead fulmar found by our group not far from the site of the recent beach clean was autopsied and found to have died with a ball of plastic sheet blocking its stomach. Sacks 'The devastation that marine litter causes is tragic and unnecessary – and it's getting worse. 'Plastic doesn't biodegrade, so the amount of it in the environment is growing all the time. 'The items we found in this experiment just go to show how complicated this issue is – it has so many sources and causes. 'It's all too easy to blame lazy picnickers or fishing boats for the waste in our seas, but in fact each of us has a responsibility. 'Scores of committed beach care volunteers have removed 800 sacks of plastic waste from a five-mile stretch of coast in the past year. The group is now organising a conference about ocean plastic at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall in Falmouth on July 21.