Finance contractor Hannah Le Bail (33), who regularly combs the beach for plastic and rubbish with her son, found the items, which include a small knife, forks and spoon, on the beach near El Tico.
She was bemused to find that it appeared to originate from the city of Manitowoc in Wisconsin due to having the words ‘Manitowoc wis 54220’ emblazoned on it, which left her wondering if it had travelled all the way across the Atlantic Ocean.
‘I always pick up plastic whenever I go to the beach and I usually end up with a pocketful each time I go,’ she said.
‘My five-year son helps me do it too – he really enjoys it. I noticed that the small cutlery set had a Wisconsin address and zip-code on it.
‘I don’t know whether it washed up from America but it looked like it had been in the sea for a long time.’
She added that other items she found that morning included a McDonald’s balloon and what looked like a glow-stick.
Concerns have grown recently about the amount of plastic in the world’s oceans, in particular because it has found its way into the food-chain of sea creatures and possibly humans as a consequence.
Eight million tonnes of plastic, which is highly durable and can take centuries to degrade, is believed to be dumped into the seas every year.
Andy Farmer of the Littlefeet environmental awareness group said that it was possible that the cutlery set had travelled all the way from the US.
‘It’s possible that this set was used on some sort of ferry or cruise ship or was jettisoned in a container from a cargo vessel,’ he said. ‘But it’s equally possible that it came from a beach café in Wisconsin itself, possibly on the shores of Lake Michigan or Lake Superior and from there made its way down the Saint Lawrence River and into the Atlantic where the prevailing wind and currents would have brought it to our shores.’
Mr Farmer organises regular beach cleans with Littlefeet and said that they often find items washed up from overseas, even from as far afield as the tropics.
‘We frequently find milk cartons from Guernsey and have found a message in a bottle from France,’ he said.
‘We have even found items with Chinese print on them, although they could have entered the ocean relatively close to us as many large vessels employ Asian crew.
‘However, we frequently find tropical seeds on our beaches, including Tamarind seeds, and last year we found a whole coconut in its husk on the beach at L’Etacq.
‘If these biodegradable items are arriving from as far away as the tropics then its reasonable to assume that some proportion of our beach plastic is also arriving from far afield.’
Littlefeet are due to hold a beach clean-up event next weekend and will meet on 13 January at 11am on Ouaisné Bay slipway and on 14 January 2018 at 11 am on La Pulente slipway.
