(Image via Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful)

The Live Here Love Here Marine Litter Capital Grants will support organisations and groups to purchase items to:

• Prevent litter and plastic pollution from entering the marine environment
• Enhance the environmental management of a local area to reduce marine litter
• Improve the health and wellbeing of communities and marine biodiversity recovery by helping to improve and/or maintain the quality of public open spaces
• Improve the quality of their local environment by changing behaviour through creative concepts to reduce the incidence of littering.

Guidance and support

Please read the guidance notes before you complete your application.

To be eligible:

• Your organisation is likely to be responsible for managing and/or owning free to access public open space, or if not, will have a clearly defined role in managing the local environmental quality of such space and this will be formally agreed with the land owners
• Your project must be located on free to access public open space or, for creative concept ideas, must show how it is applicable to free to access public open space
• You must clearly demonstrate how the project will decrease the amount of litter and plastic entering the marine environment
• You must clearly demonstrate commitment and the ability to provide for the ongoing management of any physical assets (eg regular and timely emptying of bins) purchased as part of the project
• Funding must only be used for the purchase and installation of eligible capital items
• Schools must demonstrate how they will use any assets purchased in an educational context.

Grants are available across the whole of Northern Ireland and are not restricted to coastal areas. However, the funding is specifically targeted at preventing marine litter. Therefore, applications must be able to demonstrate clearly how a project will contribute to reducing litter and plastics entering our seas. In this way, projects will help ensure good environmental status of our coastal and marine environments in relation to litter. Ultimately, this will ensure that the properties and quantities of marine litter do not cause harm to the coastal and marine environment.

Read more via the Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful website:

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