A major Pride even in the left-progressive Green Party stronghold of Brighton, England, left the local beach littered with rubbish and hundreds of empty laughing gas canisters.
“You couldn’t even see the beach in places,” said Amy Gibson, a member of the Ocean’s 8 environmentalist group who “organises regular Pier 2 Pier silent disco beach clean[s]”, according to the BBC, to which she made her comments.
“Normally we find around 20 bags’ worth of rubbish after a weekend or an event, but we’ve collected 10 times that amount in the first two hours of today’s clean.
“It’s Pride so we expected the glitter, the feather boas and the parts of people’s costumes, but I can’t believe how many noz canisters there are,” she said.
“Noz” is nitrous oxide, or laughing gas; reportedly the second-most popular drug for recreational abuse in the United Kingdom after cannabis, despite being illegal to use for such purposes under the Psychoactive Substances Act of 2016.
While the BBC highlighted warnings from the Royal College of Nursing about the “breathing difficulties, dangerously-increased heart rate, burns, and death” which laughing gas abuse can lead to, Ocean’s 8 seemed more concerned about the environmental impact of the Pride revellers, which was substantial.
“We sound like the fun police, but people really need to find more sustainable ways to have fun,” explained blogger Clare Osborn, another member of the group.
“Every one of these canisters comes with a balloon, and they are so incredibly dangerous and deadly to wildlife, which can mistake the bits of balloon for food.”
The group said it had collected over 150 bags of rubbish from the beach within the space of two hours.
Brighton and Hove City Council assisted with the clean-up, which Brighton Pride co-sponsored.
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