Donal Hickey: Beach safety in peak holiday season... anyone can drown but no one should
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Even though it happened more than 60 years ago, a frightening event during a family visit to Rossbeigh Beach on the Ring of Kerry, remains etched in memory.
On that blistering summer Sunday, a younger brother somehow slipped away from our group unnoticed and wandered off into the crowds.
A frantic search by us all ensued and, after what seemed like hours but was probably less than a half-hour, our stressed-out mother eventually located him casually walking around, completely unaware of the panic regarding his whereabouts. I can still feel the relief all around.
As we’re in the peak holiday season — amidst hopes for better beach weather — what happened way back then has been brought vividly mind by a warning from Water Safety Ireland (WSI). It urges people to give as much attention to water safety as they do road safety, particularly over this period.
Ireland averaged 10 drownings every month over five years (118 annually), with males accounting for 70% of these tragedies. People often drown due to unexpected falls, or when overestimating their ability and underestimating the risk.
WSI is advising people to show schoolchildren its summer online class which lasts only seven minutes, but which could save lives. Other tips: swim only at lifeguarded waterways, ask locally about water conditions, and never swim alone. (see the WSI website for more).
Littering is another perennial issue on beaches, despite appeals to people to bring their rubbish home with them, or at least use bins if such are provided which is not always the case.
As happens on our streets, discarded vapes are a new form of waste on beaches, leading to calls from various organisations to keep them vape-free.
Last year, an Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) survey of coasts and inland waterways noted disposable vapes as a litter type for the first time. Such waste was seen in one out of seven visits, making it even more prevalent on beaches than on streets.
The European Recycling Platform Ireland (ERP) is urging people enjoying our waterways and coasts to dispose of vapes correctly by bringing them to any retail outlet that sells vapes when purchasing a new one, or by disposing of them in the WEEE/battery area at civic amenity sites. ERP Ireland also offers free vape recycling of through its battery collection network.
A survey revealed that one in three adults in Ireland do not know where to dispose of vapes. While this figure represents an improvement on last year’s results (two out of three adults were then unaware of where to dispose), it shows that public awareness of the need to recycle vape products is growing.