But nice cus' I texted Haiti, 90 lady cops on the road and I'm arrested for doing 80

1. Name: Abygail Jones
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2. The client:
Overview of the client.
The Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) organization was founded on the 10th May 1990 by a group of passionate
surfers and beach lovers (e.g. founding member Chris Hines) who were local to the North Coast villages of
St Agnes and Porthtowan, the core SAS team are now based in St Agnes with the support of a full board of
trustees and regional reps as the organization is now a national movement.
The organization was started after this group of passionate surfers held a public meeting with a group of
surfers who were ‘literally sick of surfing in the sewage polluted waters of three local beaches’ these
being: St. Agnes, Chapel Porth and Porthtowan, they were also sick of the National Rivers Authorities
(now Environment Agency) who had very little interest in the problem; thus deciding to start their own
campaign in order to achieve the goals that they intended to fulfil.
The SAS is an environmental charity that protects the UK’s oceans, waves and beaches so that everyone
can enjoy them safely and sustainably, they do this through community action, campaigning, volunteering
conservation, education and scientific research. They aim to influence governments, create volunteering
opportunities, educate communities, challenge industries, promote their scientific, economic and health
evidence and finally, inform the general public of all the risks that affect the UK’s waves, oceans,
beaches and the people who use them.
The SAS funding is generated from membership subscriptions (where members pay a small amount to
subscribe to the website for the latest updates, information and events), individual and corporate
donations (from communities, individuals and larger companies), selling merchandise (their own branded,
fair trade, recycled or organic merch), fundraising events (beach cleans) and project sponsorship (a
larger company sponsors their projects or they sponsor other, environmental projects), the funding they
receive from these things helps them support ongoing environmental campaigns/initiatives and
community events.

3. The issues:
What issues your client campaign on?
There are a few different issues that my client looks at, these include: Water Quality, Marine Litter, Protecting
Waves, Climate Change, Toxic Chemicals and Shipping. However, the ones they have chosen to campaign on are:
Water Quality, Climate Change, Protect Our Waves, Marine Litter and Education & Reports.
What are some of the impacts they have managed to achieve?
Water Quality: The initial idea of the campaign was to pressure water companies to invest billions in to the
sewerage infrastructure, the result being: a dramatic improvement in the cleanliness of the UK’s oceans and
rivers. Water Quality still remains a core campaign for the SAS, who challenge the ‘alarming increase in sewage
discharged’ in to the oceans and rivers due to sewer overflows and other reasons. So far, the SAS have managed
to change the public perception, attitudes and responses to the quality of bathing water. This has been done
through a number of different things, one of them being Sewage Alert Service, an initiative that has created a
change in the ‘provision of sewage pollution information’ from UK water industries, there has also been strong
political support for the provision of pollution warnings at the UK’s most popular beaches and surfing areas. The
issues linked to water quality and the health risks that go along with it are also consistently highlighted on
mainstream media from newspapers like, The Sunday Times, to TV like the One Show and local news bulletins.
Climate Change: The scientific community is now accepting the science behind climate change and agree that
the impact will have a global effect. A climate change report the SAS set up in 2008 examines the very possible
impacts that a changing climate could have on waves, beaches, oceans and those that use them, consistently or
not. The report analyses possible change relating to: water quality, sea level rises, coastal erosion, storm tracks,
water temperature and ocean acidification. The SAS is also a committed member of the SCC (Stop Climate Chaos
Coalition) which is the UK’s largest group dedicated to action on climate change and the limitation of it’s impact
on the world’s poorest communities around the globe. There are more than 11 million people and over 100
organizations involved, this goes from environment or development charities to ones based on: unions, faith,
women’s group and so on. There are recommendations on how to reduce individuals carbon footprint, including:
sharing cars, switching energy suppliers, saving water, considering travel and switching off appliances when they
are not in use.

4. The issues:
Marine Litter: the SAS works on a number of levels to tackle the growing tide of marine litter that washes up on beaches all across
the UK every year! They introduced SAS beach cleans which help directly remove litter from the environment and raises public
awareness, they once reached a ‘beach clean record’ in 2013 when 314 volunteers turned up to help, annually they create over 5,000
community beach clean volunteers who educate thousands of people on the issue during school talks and outside events. Another
initiative they have is: Return to the Offender where after beach cleans, the SAS sends items of marine litter back to the original
manufacturers and distributors which challenges them to: extend their responsibility (ensure that their items don’t end up back on
the beaches), behavioural change campaigns: school education programmes and bigger campaigns to transform how the public uses,
consume and buy products (to make sure they properly dispose of their rubbish, rather than litter being dropped), Reduce, Reuse and
Recycling: reduce amount of unnecessary packaging, support recycling (especially at beach and coastal locations), Grassroots
Conservation: supporting beach cleaning activities and so on. It actually received an award for ‘best campaign’ in 2009 by Coast
Magazine. There was also ‘Break the Bag Habit’ where they joined three other environmental charities that call for a levy on single
use bags in England. In Wales, they began charging 5p per bag, funnily enough, the number of sing-use bags issued fell between 70
and 96 percent, in turn, the public support for the Welsh bag levy grew by 70%.
Awards: in 2010, the SAS won the award for ‘best campaign’ for the Mermaid’s Tears Campaign where they set up ‘operation clean
sweep’ which encouraged plastic factories to adopt the ‘plastic pellet lose prevention protocol’ – the campaign met it’s success when
the British plastic Federation adopted it’s ‘operation clean sweep’.
They also won the award for The Observer Ethical Awards in 2012 and was shortlisted in the sports category, a Lovie Award (silver) for
the ‘Protect Our Waves Petition’ website by Andrew Couldwell, Creative Circle Award (silver) for a ‘Protect Our Waves Petition’, Sony
World Photography Awards 2013 (3rd place) by Spencer Murphy, Cornwall Today Awards (2013) shortlisted for ‘best charity’, Surf at
Lisbon Film Festival (SAL) 2013, which is an environmental award for the documentary created by the SAS on ‘Killing Waves’,
Portuguese Surf Film Festival 2013 for best award for the Killing Waves documentary and another Lovie award in 2013 for non-profit
category winners, again dedicated to Andrew Couldwell’s website.
What are they still hoping to achieve?
Surfers Against Sewage is a project dedicated to targeting the coastal environmental issues as previously mentioned, what they hope
to achieve is: improving the current state of the oceans, waves and beaches by changing public behaviour, government policies and
practices within some industries i.e. the Plastic industry that eventually co-operated with the SAS to help reduce the amount of
plastic pellets that ended up on beaches. They want to influence the governments to create policies that will in the long term, create
a cleaner, safer marine environment for the benefit of a healthier ocean/beaches/coast line which recreational water users and the
public alike can enjoy. They also want to create volunteering opportunities and educate communities and the public on solutions that
are feasible and sustainable, this will help them to challenge industries which they intend to challenge so they adopt better standards
for the protection of the coastal environment, whilst doing this, their scientific, economic and health evidence will be promoted and
will support their calls for their intended purpose. They also aim to generate at least 100,000 signatures so they can highlight the
importance of surfing waves and it’s locations in the UK. Source: http://www.sas.org.uk/awards/

5. Facts and figures:
Use this space to highlight key facts and figures related to this project. These could be very useful later on in your
project as you try to raise awareness.
•In the space of 7 months since the start of the organization, the SAS spread nationally, teamed up with Langland Boardriders (concerned with the
dumping of toxic waste) had achieved a membership of 2,000 people, gained press, radio and terrestrial/satellite coverage.
•Following year, the campaign message was taken to Westminster
•First SAS-supported legal case: virology expert agreed the ingestion of sewage contaminated seawater was the route to infection.
•Medical database was set up by SAS to record cases of water users who became ill after being in polluted seawater
•1995 – 18 month long Astrovirus study published, provides health risks of entering contaminated waters. Start of a 2 year investigation of hepatitis
A in surfers.
•Initial campaign contributed to pressure on water companies to invest roughly £5 billion in sewerage infrastructures for a dramatic improvement in
the state of oceans and rivers.
•2001: House of commons demo: targeted by an SAS demo, over 150 wetsuited water users called for governments to back up a new bathing water
directive.
•2006: EU agree to new Bathing Water Directive: campaign success, specific demands met – start of strengthening water quality standards.
•2009 Protect Our Waves campaign launched: biggest supported action in Broad Bench, Kimmeridge, Dorset. 350 Activists/supporters turn up to
support the launch.
•2010: the Scottish Marine Bill included recreations water users after extensive lobbying on behalf of the SAS.
•2011: sewage Alert Service – using ‘real-time SMS service’ to protect surfers and waters from sewage spills – it covers almost 200 surf spots
nationwide.
•2013: Beach Clean record – SAS organised the biggest ever beach clean, they set an unofficial UK record of 314 beach cleaning volunteers – the
record will contribute to an unpredictable year of SAS volunteering, the target it up there with 5,000 beach cleaning volunteers
•2013: Launch of sewage alert service app on iPhone or other smart phones for free
•2013: SAS visit parliament and make history with the biggest surfing-related petition in the world being delivered to 10 Downing Street. Around
55,000 signatures called for better recognition and the protection of the UK’s beaches, waves and oceans
•There are over 250,000 sewer blockages a year caused by sanitary waste, fats, oils and grease in the sewers – more than £80 million is spent on
cleaning this up after it causes sewer blockages.
•Hepatitis A (sewage related pathogen) can survive for more than 90 days in sea water
•34.4% of marine litter comes directly from the public
•Mermaid’s tears (plastic pellets from plastic industries) are the 2nd most common litter item to be found on UK beaches
•A plastic bottle can stay within a marine environment for more than 450 years after it’s left on a beach
•Amount of marine litter found on UK beaches has doubled in the last 15 years
•Safer Seas Service warned of 1,500 pollution incidents in 2014
•300,00 whales, dolphins and other cetaceans are killed annually by fishing equipment
•4.5 trillion cigarette butts litter the environment every year, these contain toxins such as: cadmium, lead and arsenic which pollutes up to 8 litres
of water
•Annually, 6.4 million tonnes of litter are estimated to enter the sea
•Approximately, 8 million individual bits of marine litter enter the oceans every day – 37% of this comes directly from public use
•Refuse, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
•Local authorities spend £18 million annually, removing the beach litter
•Broad Bench (UK’s world-class south coast surf spot) is off limits up to 228 days a year
Source: http://www.sas.org.uk/share-the-facts/