90% OF LITTER ON BEACHES IS PLASTIC
220,000 bottles, bags and wrappers found on just one stretch of coastline
PLASTIC pollution is overwhelming Britain, making up close to 90 per cent of litter on beaches.
Scientists have reported that 220,000 pieces of plastic were found along one 37-mile stretch of coastline, including plastic bags, bottle caps and cotton bud sticks.
As pressure builds on supermarkets to cut unnecessary plastic packaging, a seven-year trawl of beaches has brought disturbing evidence of where it ends up.
The huge study found the 220,802 plastic items along only nine beaches in Cornwall. They represented 89 per cent of the litter found on the beaches.
Among them were 2,509 cotton bud sticks, thought to have been flushed down toilets, 13,115 drinks caps and lids, 3,109 drinks bottles and more than 81,000 unidentifiable plastic fragments – thought to have been in the sea for decades.
The findings support calls for a deposit scheme for plastic bottles, which has been backed by supermarkets Iceland and Coop, and is a key element of the Daily Mail’s Turn the Tide on Plastic campaign. This newspaper has already campaigned against plastic bags, takeaway coffee cups and the microbeads found in face washes and toothpaste – which led the Government to commit to a world-leading ban on their use in personal care products.
Study co-author Adam Porter, from the University of Exeter, said: ‘Many people blame beach users for not putting their litter in the bin, they blame fishermen for dumping waste, but our study shows the majority of waste is made up of fragmented plastics which have been in the sea for a long time and broken down – and these come from all of us. We need to use plastics responsibly, and they need to be recycled to protect the hundreds of animal groups known to be swallowing this waste.’
Sir David Attenborough’s Blue Planet II BBC series has shown in heartbreaking detail the threat posed to marine creatures by plastic pollution. Episodes include a whale with a dead calf, thought to have been poisoned by plastic, and a dead baby albatross unwittingly fed a toothpick by its mother.
The latest study, led by Exeter University, collected data from council workers who cleared litter at nine beaches in North Cornwall between January 2005 and December 2011. In an area including Polzeath, where former prime minister David Cameron holidays, researchers found waste had more than doubled in six years. The study, published in the journal Environmental Pollution, concluded that paper, cardboard and timber made up just over 4 per cent of the total litter items recovered, metal 3 per cent and glass 0.3 per cent.
The results do not include the tiny microplastics found as beads in face washes and toothpaste, which are eaten by shellfish and birds. Only 59 per cent of the litter found could be identified.
Experts say this shows plastic has been in the sea for decades, becoming eroded by the wind and water, with some likely to have travelled across the globe to reach the UK. The findings come after the Marine Conservation Society warned last week that Britain is ‘choking in plastic’, having found a 27 per cent rise in plastic and polystyrene items since 2008 across 339 stretches of UK coastline.
Neil Hembrow, beachcare officer at campaign group Keep Britain Tidy, who co-authored the Exeter University study, said: ‘The most worrying aspect about the majority of plastic we pick up when we are doing beach cleans is that it is in unrecognisable, small fragments – fragments that are already on their way to becoming microplastics.’
Environment Secretary Michael Gove has set up a team to investigate a deposit and return scheme for plastic bottles. Waitrose and Marks & Spencer have hinted they are ready to back such a scheme, while the UN is expected to begin a crackdown on plastic pollution, possibly as early as this week.