The supermarket said that the toy is made from regenerated litter such as plastic cups, fishing tackle and bottle tops.

The frisbee includes plastic collected by M&S’ customers and employees at last year’s ‘Big Beach Clean-up’ volunteer event. This is an annual event where volunteers help to clear litter from beaches and canals across the UK.

The product is on sale now at M&S.com and in six costal M&S stores – Belfast (Abbey Centre), Bexhill, Lytham St Annes, Silverlink Retail Park, Weston Super Mare and Edinburgh Kinnaird.

It costs £2.50, with 50p from each sale going directly to the Marine Conservation Society (MCS).

M&S director of Plan A Mike Barry said: “We’ve managed to transform waste, taking it off beaches where it threatens marine life, into a brand new product that is fun for our customers and raises money for MCS’ on-going work to protect our seas.

“That’s Plan A in action, a volunteer event that engages customers, saves precious raw materials and gives back to charity – all with a business case behind it.”

Last April thousands of M&S customers and employees helped clean over 300km of coastline. To trial whether or not M&S could collect and make a product from the beach litter, the plastic from six (Shoeburyness, Aberdeen, Coleraine, Scarborough, Swansea Bay and Southsea) of the beaches was segregated, cleaned and reprocessed into production ready recycled plastic.

Two UK firms supported the project. Axion Polymers, a recycling specialist based in Salford, transformed the litter into product grade recycled plastic and Make a Material Difference, based in Leicester, created and manufactured the product.

This year’s M&S Big Beach Clean-up will clean 140 UK beaches and canals from 24 April to 30 April. The target is to clear more than last year’s collection of 30 tonnes of litter.

Liz Gyekye

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