As part of The Ferret’s Scotland’s Seas in Danger series, our co-editor Billy Briggs, and photographer Angela Catlin, have been travelling across Scotland to document pressing problems impacting our marine environment, as well as potential solutions.
The final part of our year-long investigation was launched this week and it focuses on the blight of plastic pollution. Yesterday, we revealed that scientists have found the highest ever level of microplastics in Scottish waters.
Microplastics are tiny plastic litter measuring less than five millimetres. They have been found in the world’s oceans, lakes, waterways, soil, air, food, and even the human bloodstream.
In Scotland, there is increasing concern over plastic in our seas, an issue one campaigner described as being part of a “global scale chemical pollution” problem. But there are many communities taking positive action, including beach clean-ups near to their homes.
Briggs and Catlin chronicled projects in Argyll, Fife and Shetland.
Plastic items are the most common type of litter. Plastic breaks into increasingly smaller pieces and it is thought that it never fully biodegrades.
In 1993, the Grab Trust was formed to deal with waste and recycling issues in Argyll and Bute and to preserve the natural environment.
We visited Arrochar, an Argyll village near the head of Loch Long, on the Cowal Peninsula, where locals regularly clean beaches.
A 2022 report by Grab Trust revealed that Argyll and Bute suffers slightly higher levels of litter on its beaches than the national average. There were 434 beach surveys conducted between September 1994 and December 2022.
During these surveys more than 3,008 bags of litter – weighing over 14,135 kg – were collected and recorded. Some blackspots are far worse, Grab Trust said, including Arrochar where during one survey volunteers recorded a total of 7,023 pieces of litter were recorded in one square metre.
On average in Argyll, there were 412 pieces of plastic litter per 100 metres of beach – triple the amount found on beaches in 1994.
Key types of litter include snack packets, plastic bottles, drinks cans, plastic bags, cigarette butts, menstrual and medical litter, and waste from aquaculture.
Jacqui Willis is the beaches and marine litter project education officer at Grab Trust. She told The Ferret: “Litter from Glasgow and the Irish Sea is ending up on Arrochar beach and it’s a huge problem. Local people are incredibly frustrated.
“There were 220 to 250 tonnes cleaned up each year between 2017 and 2021 at a total cost of £184,000. One problem though is seaweed getting taken to landfill alongside the plastic because all organic material generates methane in landfill. So we need to develop techology to separate seaweed from plastic. Arrochar needs big solutions.”
The Scottish Government passed the Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024 this year and ministers say they are trying to address major pollution sources such as plastic pellets, as well as supporting the removal of rubbish from our seas and beaches.
An October report by Environmental Standards Scotland said Scottish beaches are the dirtiest in the UK. The public body called on the Scottish Government to urgently tackle marine litter polluting Scotland’s beaches and seas.
At Limekilns Pier Beach, Fife, The Ferret met Joanna McFarlane, volunteer director of the CLP (Charlestown, Limekilns, Pattiesmuir) branch of Nature Action.
This group was founded in 2018 after nature lovers upset by pollution met in a village pub to discuss how they could do more for nature collectively – both for wildlife and the local community.
CLP Nature Action recently won a “Community Initiative Award” at the 2024 Nature of Scotland Awards. It is a member of Coastal Communities Network, a Scotland-wide initiative comprising many local groups committed to looking after Scotland’s coastal and marine environments
McFarlane told the Ferret: “We clean eight beaches locally. They are covered in nurdles , sewage-related plastic, microplastics, food packaging, bottles, stuff off boats – every type of plastic you could imagine.”
The Ferret also visited Shetland to document a project called Fishing for Litter, which deals with abandoned, lost, or discarded fishing gear that continues to catch and kill marine life.
Mostly made up of durable plastics, this waste kills untold numbers of animals each year including seals, seabirds, sea turtles, whales and sharks.
Fishers involved with the project bring back discarded fishing gear found at sea and put the waste in skips at local harbours. The waste is recycled or disposed of at no cost to people.
Ross MacLennan, small ports supervisor at Scalloway Harbour, said: “Shetland Islands Council operate several ports and harbours around Shetland, with Scalloway Harbour being the main management hub for most of these facilities across the isles.
“Collection bags are available at Scalloway Fish Market for vessels of all sizes, and collected waste is placed into a dedicated skip for safe disposal or recycling.”
Scotland’s Seas in Danger is a year-long investigative series by The Ferret that delves into Scotland’s marine environment. Our investigations were carried out with the support of Journalismfund Europe and in partnership with the Investigative Reporting Project Italy (IRPI).
If you like our independent journalism and want to help us do more, support us by becoming a member. You can also donate or subscribe to our free newsletter.
Photography by Angela Catlin, words by Billy Briggs.
