Over 2,700 volunteers clean up Dutch beaches

Over 2,700 volunteers are participating in the sixth edition of the Boskalis Beach Cleanup Tour, the annual cleaning action organized by the North Sea Foundation. Over the next two weeks, they will clean up the entire stretch of North Sea beaches in the Netherlands, the Telegraaf reports.

The cleanup started on Wednesday with two teams of volunteers - one team starting at Cadzand in the south and the other at Schiermonnikoog. Each day the cleaning teams will get closer to each other, until they finish together in Zandvoort.

According to the North Sea Foundation, there is an average of 375 pieces of waste per 100 meters of beach. About 90 percent of the waste consists of plastic - the largest polluter of the world's oceans. There is an estimated 8 million tons of plastic floating around in the oceans.

Last year the 2,748 volunteers that participated in the Boskalis Beach Cleanup Tour collected 14,929 kilograms of waste. The first cleanup tour was in 2013. Then 563 volunteers picked up 6,590 kilograms of waste in 24 days.