One volunteer in Connemara alone collected 1,284kgs from her weekly beach clean-ups, mostly fishing-tackle pollution washed in from trawlers.
In 163 clean-ups, the Flossie and The Beach Cleaners group collected 6,925kg of pollution which averages at 42.5kg per clean-up, an amount the group described as "either phenomenal or depressing".
The trash collected in 2024 was down more than 20% from the 8,872kg gathered in 2023.
Flossie Donnelly, who set the charity up nearly six years ago, said: "Another year of beach cleaning has gone by in what feels like a blink. This year our total weight does not reflect the state of our beaches or the sea. Behind all the weird and wonderful finds is a lot of rubbish.
Shockingly bad
"As a scuba diver the visibility in Ireland this year has been shockingly bad and too dangerous to dive in some days.
"This is due to drilling into the sea bed and storms caused by climate change. If it’s hard for us divers to see underwater imagine what it’s like for marine life.
"Being practically blind underwater leads to them getting tangled up in fishing rigging and trying to eat plastic thinking that it’s a fish."
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Flossie, 17, from Sandycove, south Dublin, added: "The state of our beaches and sea is a serious problem in our world which I know we can solve but it will take a lot of time and a lot of effort."
She added: "We live on one of the most beautiful Islands in the world and climate change is very real so we will continue to do what we can to clean and protect the surrounding coastline."
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* This article was originally published on Extra.ie.
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