Youngster with the task of clearing a coastline
A SCHOOLBOY set to work yesterday on the mammoth task of clearing a mountain of plastic debris from the most westerly shoreline on the British mainland.
Innes Ferguson, 16, spent much of his childhood walking by the sea below the lighthouse at Ardnamurchan Point, Argyll.
Now a sponsored clean-up of the area he loves will help Innes, of Kilchoan, Argyll, raise cash for a trip to Nepal, where he is to help improve facilities at a school in a remote part of the country.
Innes, whose father David is a lighthouse keeper who manages the visitor centre at Ardnamurchan lighthouse, said: ‘We lived there for eight years, until about two years ago when we moved a few miles away to Kilchoan. When we were living there, I was always walking down on the shore with our dogs.’
The isolated spot is now littered with plastic bottles and debris washed in by the waves – a fraction of the estimated eight million tons of such waste being washed into the world’s oceans each year.
Innes, who thinks it will take a couple of days to complete his task, said: ‘My generation is really quite emotional about plastic waste. We do a lot about it in school, in geography and in science, all about how plastics don’t break down and affect the wildlife and the sea.
‘This is something that affects the whole Ardnamurchan peninsula, it’s so many miles of coastline.’
The youngster, a pupil of Ardnamurchan High School, added: ‘There have been clean-ups in the most popular areas but nobody thinks to go to the lighthouse, although this area is seen by lots of people. It’s the main tourist attraction of Kilchoan, with 16,000 people a year going up the lighthouse.’
Innes, who will be concentrating on the worst-hit bay on the shore, said: ‘There is so much plastic getting washed up on our shores. At Ardnamurchan lighthouse there is an inlet on the shoreline known locally as The Tarry Hole and that is the area I will be clearing.’
Of the plastic debris, Innes said: ‘No one wants it. It can’t be reused, so is left there. It gets taken away again at high tides and is back floating in our seas and the sea life are suffering.’
Innes has already raised almost £1,000 of the £1,500 in sponsorship he needs for his trip.