BATHROOM RUBBISH TO BLAME FOR FILTHY BEACHES
Record waste choking Scottish shores Turn to Page 6
A SURGE in litter on Scotland’s beaches is being caused by people flushing away bathroom waste instead of binning it.
An average of 500 pieces, including plastics and sanitary items, can now be found strewn over every 100 yards of beach.
The volume of rubbish such as wet wipes and cotton swabs found along the coast has soared by 40 per cent in the past year.
The Marine Conservation Society, whose volunteers carried out the study, also said single-use plastics such as cups, stirrers, straws and bottles are ‘choking’ our oceans and account for a fifth of all rubbish on beaches.
Last night, the study sparked renewed calls for the Government to introduce a plastic tax to halt the rising tide of pollution. The findings came as:
Two major supermarkets joined calls for a deposit and return
scheme for plastic bottles to cut down on the amount of waste caused by single-use products;
The Natural History Museum in London announced it will end the sale of single-use plastic water bottles to help ‘reduce the deluge of plastic into our seas’.
Marine Conservation Society chief executive Sandy Luk said: ‘Our beach clean evidence shows a shocking rise in the amount of litter this year. Our oceans are choking in plastic. We urgently need a levy on single-use plastic as a first step.’
The shocking state of the coast was revealed in the results of this year’s Great British Beach Clean, which the MCS conducts across the UK every September.
The event showed 21 per cent of all Scottish beach litter is from bathrooms, compared to only 8 per cent in the rest of the UK.
The MCS reported a huge rise in sewage-related debris (SRD) – items such as wet wipes, swabs and razors that are flushed down toilets instead of being binned.
These end up in the sea when the ‘combined sewer overflow’ kicks in during heavy rainfall and flushes excess water from sewers through pipes to the sea.
The volume of SRD on Scotland’s beaches was found to have increased by 40 per cent on last year. The number of wet wipes along the coastline was found to have risen by a staggering 141 per cent over the same period.
The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) urged retailers to improve labelling of products that consumers think can be flushed down the toilet, and called on manufacturers to remove plastic from their ‘flushable’ products.
MCS Scotland conservation officer Catherine Gemmell said: ‘No one wants to swim with a flushed wet wipe or make a sand castle out of cotton bud sticks.
‘We can all make a difference for our seas and beaches both for society and wildlife.’
Across Scotland, the overall volume of beach litter rose by 6 per cent in 2017 compared with 2016. Although the country had the UK’s lowest overall beach litter density for a third year in a row, the report accused people of treating our shores as a ‘big dustbin’.
Conservationists say that Scotland’s 5p levy on single-use carrier bags has helped in reducing the number of plastic bags found on beaches, adding that a deposit return system on plastic bottles would similarly reduce the amount of waste being dumped.
Miss Gemmell said: ‘Scotland’s 5p single-use carrier bag charge has made a massive difference to the number of plastic bags entering our seas, combined with similar charges elsewhere in the UK.
‘We believe we will see a similar impact on bottles and cans when Scotland’s deposit return system is implemented. If a levy was placed on single-use plastic such as straws, stirrers, cutlery, cups and cup lids, we’re confident that we’d find fewer of these items on Scotland’s beaches.’
The study saw 1,588 volunteers collect 57,961 litter items from 111 beaches across Scotland – an average of 490 pieces of litter from every 100 yards cleaned.
Iain Gulland, chief executive of Zero Waste Scotland, said the figures should prompt tough action against single-use plastics: ‘We know most marine litter starts on land – it’s things that are carelessly discarded that then get into water courses, polluting our rivers and seas. So we need to urgently change our ways.’
The issue over plastic waste was highlighted last week by the BBC’s Blue Planet II documentary, which portrayed the death of a whale believed to be poisoned by plastic.
After a Scottish Daily Mail campaign, the Scottish Government committed itself to implementing a bottle deposit scheme due to be in place in the next two years.
The latest study came as two major shop chains – Iceland and the Co-op – backed moves for a bottle deposit scheme to run across Scotland and the UK. Derek Robertson, chief executive of Keep Scotland Beautiful, said: ‘We all need to take personal responsibility for our waste, live more sustainably and ensure our rubbish is put in a litter bin.’
Scottish Environment Secretary Roseanna Cunningham said: ‘We are progressing with the work of our Marine Litter Strategy, including introducing a ban on the manufacture and sale of toiletries containing plastic microbeads.
‘The Scottish Government is also showing global leadership with our vision of a circular economy, where our resources are valued and not wasted.
‘We made four commitments in our Programme for Government to help tackle marine litter including introducing a deposit return scheme, establishing an advisory group to consider options to reduce waste with single-use items in particular, funding work to help address litter sinks and marine plastics and also hosting an international conference on the marine environment with a focus on marine plastics.
‘I’d urge people to rethink their dependency on single-use products, re-use items where possible, recycle their waste and to also stop disposing of items down their toilets which shouldn’t be there. These simple changes can make a big difference to our seas.’