We must turn back plastic poison tide

YESTERDAY we carried a horrific image of a seal snared in a discarded fishing net, while today we publish troubling photographs vividly illustrating an ecological disaster in the making.

Today’s pictures show just a couple of the beaches scarred by plastic waste in a pollution crisis that grows worse every year.

Indeed, the Marine Conservation Society said an average of 500 pieces of litter, including plastics and sanitary items, can now be found scattered across every 100 yards of beach here in Scotland.

The volume of bathroom rubbish, such as wet wipes and cotton swabs, along coastlines has increased by 40 per cent.

It is grim for a country which once boasted a pristine environment. Meanwhile, the plastic pollution we cannot see – the trillions of toxic microbeads and other hazardous waste polluting the oceans – wreaks untold harm, snaring sea creatures and entering the food chain.

Yet with a little imagination and common sense, disaster can be easily avoided – as this paper proved with its hugely successful campaigns against microbeads and singleuse supermarket plastic bags.

This is why the Mail welcomes Iceland and the Co-op backing our call for a deposit and return scheme for plastic bottles.

It is initiatives such as this these that will help rid us of the an unnecessary scourge – and leave a greener planet for our children and generations as yet unborn to enjoy.