Marine pyrotechnic amnesty on April 28

Do you have any out-ofdate marine pyrotechnics stored on your boat, at home or in a garage or shed? Not sure how to get rid of them safely?

HM Coastguard, as part of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, has no statutory responsibility to collect out-of-date marine pyrotechnics for disposal, but a one-off exception has been made due to information that there are a large number of such items on Arran.

On Saturday April 28, from 10am-3pm, you will be able to take any outof-date marine pyrotechnics you have to the tennis courts beside the Coastguard station in Lamlash where they will be taken from you for safe disposal. A spokesman said: ‘We are only able to take marine pyrotechnics such as handheld rocket flares, hand- held maroons, parachute red rocket flares, miniflare packs and buoyant smokes. These come from a variety of manufacturers, but as long as they can be clearly identified as a marine pyrotechnic – used for signalling at sea – they will be accepted, no matter how long ago they went out of date.

‘It will not be possible for any items to be collected from those unable to attend on the day and under no circumstances should they be left at the door of the Coastguard station as this is an offence.

‘Once the amnesty is done, it will not be repeated. It is the responsibility of boat owners to ensure the safe disposal of their marine pyrotechnics and we would like to remind people that it is an offence to dump them at sea, on land or to let them off unless it is an emergency.’