ISLE OF BUTE
Beachwatch Bute SCIO is celebrating its 21st year by rolling out an innovative programme of new litter picking benches around Bute’s beautiful beaches, made possible by funding from the Co-op Community Fund.
The idea behind these storage benches is that people will have access to litter pickers and bags to allow them to beach clean at their leisure. Then they can sit down, relax and admire their hard work. Filled bags of marine litter can be stored either in the benches or nearby, above the high-water mark on the shoreline. The beach ranger can be notified through Facebook that there are filled bags.
Beach Ranger Sandra MacMillan explained that the benches, manufactured by Solway Recycling, are ‘robust, comfortable and unique’. She added: ‘We liked what we saw and they liked the idea of our benches.
‘There was nothing available in their existing range of goods so we set to work on designing something new that we are all immensely proud of and are a credit to them. We hope others may pick up on our idea.’