Yonder

30/08/2026

A week of teaching these radical groms. On paper these were our last Yonder sessions in the NE before we move. Big changes and exciting times ahead. It’s been an absolute pleasure teaching these little legends, some who I’ve been teaching for the past few years, cakes and flowers on our last day 🙌

What’s happening next with Yonder? Will keep you posted!

07/08/2026

A good news share from today!

Photos from NIFCA Northumberland Inshore Fisheries Conservation Association and their team. Our Open Letter had NIFCA at the forefront. They were allowed on the river officially yesterday at 8.45 after being told to stand down a week and a half ago and here are their photos from today’s clean. NIFCA will be back first thing Monday. These folk are all volunteering their time and expertise and we are so pleased to have helped them get on that river. Right people, right place, we did this. Please feel free to share images but make sure to credit the above and us as a community ✊

I don’t know about anyone else but it feels good to see these areas get cleaned up 🙌

Still a long way to go and we still need to make sure this is classed as the Major Pollution Incident that it deserves and so gets national attentional and support but we will take this for now.

Mike Hill | Deathpack BMX 🥳

05/08/2026

An update on the river:

We have been told by IFCA - Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority that they have been given permission to enter the river and will start their volunteer clean up efforts tomorrow and continue over the weekend. After being told last week to stand down, this is a huge step in the right direction and it is so comforting to know that a local organisation who have desperately being trying to help out with trained volunteers and equipment ready to go (and share with others) have been given the go-ahead. At present they have been asked by the Port of Tyne to work with and take direction from Ambipar. Ambipar is the agency that the Port of Tyne contracted in to assist (to my knowledge) - this will increase the efforts on the river.

Our open letter and community pressure has brought us to this place with the Environment Agency and their volunteer crew and RIB are due to head in alongside IFCA early next week - they are currently awaiting risk assessment sign off from PoT.

In addition as a community we have reached out to the Royal Quays Marina safety boat and the Red Seals - we are waiting a response from these teams but hope that seeing IFCA and EA on the clean up project will help encourage more help.

We must stress that these agencies are volunteering their own time, their own hours outside of their own working hours and into the weekend as they, like us, love the North Sea, the Tyne and our coastline and our environment. A huge thank you to them. They have even made a contraption called the Nurdle Hurdle - that they have been waiting to test. These are the volunteers we were speaking of and we should be very proud. Disappointing beyond belief that it took this long and this amount of effort but proud.

Alongside these we have placed pressure today on the PoT to actually declare an environmental emergency on the river - as should have been done in the first place. We await a response.

05/08/2026

An update on the river:

We have been told by IFCA - Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority that they have been given permission to enter the river and will start their volunteer clean up efforts tomorrow and continue over the weekend. After being told last week to stand down, this is a huge step in the right direction and it is so comforting to know that a local organisation who have desperately being trying to help out with trained volunteers and equipment ready to go (and share with others) have been given the go-ahead. At present they have been asked by the Port of Tyne to work with and be tasked by Ambipar. Ambipar is the agency that the Port of Tyne contracted in to assist (to my knowledge) - this will increase the efforts on the river.

Our open letter and community pressure has brought us to this place with the Environment Agency and their volunteer crew and RIB are due to head in alongside IFCA early next week - they are currently awaiting risk assessment sign off from PoT.

In addition as a community we have reached out to the Royal Quays Marina safety boat and the Red Seals - we are waiting a response from these teams but hope that seeing IFCA and EA on the clean up project will help encourage more help.

We must stress that these agencies are volunteering their own time, their own hours outside of their own working hours and into the weekend as they, like us, love the North Sea, the Tyne and our coastline and our environment. A huge thank you to them. They have even made a contraption called the Nurdle Hurdle - that they have been waiting to test. These are the volunteers we were speaking of and we should be very proud. Disappointing beyond belief that it took this long and this amount of effort but proud.

Alongside these we have placed pressure today on the PoT to actually declare an environmental emergency on the river - as should have been done in the first place. We await a response.

✌️

04/08/2026

Port of Tyne Open Letter update:

So proud of these lot yesterday. What a journey it’s been and will continue to be. Yesterday the community managed to sit at the table with Chief Executive Matt Beeton. Members from our force of volunteers both North and South of the Tyne were able to speak on behalf of us, express our serious concerns about the clean up efforts and put the case forward for allowing in help on the river.

The Port of Tyne Chief Executive Matt Beeton today (Monday) welcomed community volunteers and environmental campaign representatives to discuss the ongoing response to the recent nurdle spill on the River Tyne.

Having listened to the concerns and requests from the communities north and south of the River, the Port is putting together a plan of action which will allow volunteers to help on the river in a safe and controlled manner.

“Now that the salvage operation has passed a critical stage, we are putting plans in place to invite the community to help in a safe and managed way. The solution will be in conversation with volunteers who will play a major role in deciding what we do and how we do it, as well as taking part in the continued cleanup.”

WE still have serious concerns over the delays and appropriate treatment of this incident as an environmental disaster. We still do not believe that it is being treated as such.

There is a long way to go and we need to find out if this is just words or actions.

For now we need the local community to look to their networks on the river and the Royals Quays, their contacts with ribs that can go in and assist with this clean up.

02/08/2026

31/07/2026

Call to Action - Port of Tyne Step Up!

As a community we are exhausted - we have been dealing with this alone now for the past two weeks. We can assure you that there are not hoards of contractors out in force with machinery cleaning this up. It’s just us. South of the river we have the incredible doing their very best and as amazing as they are, this is huge.

We have heard reports of specialist, locally based and fully funded teams wanting to access the river and help clear the nurdles estimated 1.5 billion (plastic pellets) being stood down by contractors last weekend.

This is a travesty and the Port of Tyne need to let those organisations and specialist teams in.

Open letter for organisations, local business, national businesses and NGOs to sign - addressed to Port of Tyne demanding urgent action. See link in bio.

31/07/2026

⚡️We need you to now help us 🙏 ⚡️

The community coming together, defying the authorities request to stand down has got us this far. We have been on our hands and knees every day since this began collecting plastic nurdles washed up on our beaches from one of the worse, if not the worst plastic spills in Europe. It took the Port of Tyne 4 to act.

As a community we have done our best, we’ve thrown the kitchen sink at this and we’ve done it alone. We now need the help of the wider community, let’s put the pressure on those in authority to do much much more.

This is our river but these seas connect us all 💪

Send this far and wide - we are asking local business, national businesses, organisations, NGOs, CEOs to sign the Open Letter to the Port of Tyne asking for serious action to be taken immediately. See open letter above.

Send this to every press outlet you know - this story, despite being cited as Europe’s worst ever plastic spill has still not made it to the national news 🤯

ORGANISATIONS BUSINESSES SIGN LINK IN BIO ⬆️

We are 2242 members strong but we are not enough alone to deal with the 1.5 billion pieces of plastic floating in our river and landing on our beaches.