Brighton has always been known for its freewheeling yet eco-conscious culture. There’s the sizeable LGBTQ+ population, which feels palpable when you walk down the rainbow-lined city streets, pass the many gay bars and pubs or visit the city’s massive annual Pride event. Then there are the student and artist populations, there in part due to the various universities and art schools, brilliant art galleries and year-round cultural calendar including Brighton Fringe. Brighton is the only place in the UK to have ever voted in a Green Party MP – heroine of environmentalism Caroline Lucas, who has instilled a top-down eco-friendly ethos. For these reasons and more, plus its situation by the sea, for many hippy Brighton is Britain’s answer to San Francisco in America.

One person who agrees with this comparison is Melanie Rees. “I’ve lived in Brighton for 20 years and I once lived in San Francisco for 18 months. I think they both have a very dynamic energy. It feels safe and encouraging to try something new.” Last year, Melanie did just that, setting up an organisation called Oceans 8, which is a supergroup of women who, like herself, work in environmentalism and are passionate about protecting the ocean. “I saw the movie poster for the real Oceans 8, and read that it was this film about eight top female robbers with different skills, and I thought ‘hey, we’ve got our own version of that!’ – women who have spent many years encouraging recycling in the city, and finding cool ways to protect the ocean.”

One of the members of the Oceans 8 Brighton gang is Amy Gibson, who runs Pier2Pier, a beach clean that takes place monthly on the seafront and encourages anyone to come along and pick up plastic and other litter before it washes into the ocean and becomes a danger to marine life. There’s even a silent disco for while you’re cleaning. Melanie, who runs the Green Centre, an environmental education project in Brighton, always shows up to the beach clean to give out up to date info about how to recycle, and another member of the group, marine environment consultant Atlanta Cook, comes along to teach people about marine conservation. Really, Oceans 8 is about sharing information and expertise but their goal is to do whatever they can – small or big – to reduce the 8 million tonnes of plastic dumped into the ocean each year.

“Plastic seems to be a key thing people are focussing on at the moment because since Blue Planet aired people are more aware of how it’s damaging marine life, which is great,” says Melanie. “The broader picture is that we’re consuming massive amounts of the earth’s resources, and many of these are not renewable. We’re also making items that require copious amounts of energy to produce, and sometimes using them for a very short amount of time before failing to correctly dispose of them. Perhaps they’re going straight into landfill or incineration when those resources could be used in a better way. But as well as recycling, we need to be looking further up the waste hierarchy at how big companies we can reduce the use and waste of plastic. In the supermarket, everything is covered in plastic, but you only have to go to an outdoor market where everything is loose to understand that it’s not necessary.”

For Melanie, Oceans 8 has brought an even greater sense of community than she had previously experienced in Brighton; “it’s a great example of women working together and supporting one another,” she says, encouraging others to get involved in environmental work in Brighton, whether visiting for a day, a week or a year. “Brighton’s a very green place and there are lots of grassroots things going on; talks, workshops, and growing organisations.”

Beyond following Oceans 8, or going to a Pier2Pier beach clean, she suggests checking out Brighton Green Centre, using Freegle (a national organisation with a big Brighton contingency for recycling stuff), and keeping an eye on the social media accounts of Surfers Against Sewage, Incredible Oceans, Claire Talks Rubbish and Dirty Beaches for events.

These aren’t just opportunities to learn more about plastic consumption but places to meet like -minded green people, in a city where there’s a lot of different types of people under one big rainbow banner. “Diversity is at the heart of all environmentalism and Brighton is a really good example of diversity and how that can create positive organisations and campaigns,” Melanie says. “The amount of creativity here makes for really creative solutions to things like waste, and I hope that Oceans 8 will be one that makes a real difference.”

Header image photography : Courtesy of VisitBritain / VisitEngland
Article photography : Brennan Bucannan