A small Cornish brewery has made a big contribution to the ocean clean-up.
The Driftwood Spars Brewery, located in Trevaunance Cove near St Agnes, managed to raise £4,543 (plus gift aid of £429.25) for the charity Fathoms Free and its Clean Cornish Seas campaign.
The money has been raised thanks to a decision by head brewer Mike Mason and brewery owner Louise Treseder to donate a percentage from every sale of the brewery’s Cove range of craft beers.
Treseder said: “Recently, Fathoms Free were called here to the cove. A swimmer had spotted an abandoned fishing pot with 50m of rope attached to it. It was posing a danger to marine life, with dolphins and seals at risk of entanglement, but it was also a hazard for the RNLI vessel which launches regularly from here. At sunrise the next day the dive team were here – they quickly gathered the rope and made the pot safe. It’s great to see our donations being put to work here in our own backyard.”
The cash will be used to fund retrieval dives along the Cornish coast; the experienced team has already recovered a vast amount of ghost gear and aims to tackle 12 major sites in 2022 known to be littered with abandoned fishing equipment and marine debris.
