Plastic waste
Wet wipes, straws and ‘mermaids’ tears’: Jane Bradley on the marine plastic epidemic that’s poisoning our food
hhhh, it’s garbage,” said the fresh-faced American tourist, clearly relieved to realise that the giant bags we were lugging on to Cramond promenade did not actually contain dead bodies.
His expression changed and he looked us straight in the eye, in that sincere way that only Americans can. “I thank you,” he said.
It was a freezing Saturday morning and while most of you were probably happily tucked up your beds, I was out in my gardening gloves and a woolly hat, plucking revolting items of sewage from the beach. I can’t claim a great gesture of altruism: my far more motivated friend had suggested we take part in a beach clean, and with a New Year resolution to say “yes” to as many things as possible, I had agreed.
In the end I was glad I did. Walking along the seafront before the clean up, I’d thought the beach hadn’t looked too bad. What I had expected to find was litter left by people who had enjoyed summer picnics on the sand a few months ago. A discarded drinks can, maybe, a couple of chocolate bar wrappers. Bright-coloured pieces of litter which would have been obvious to the naked eye, perhaps slightly faded by their time in the sun.
On closer inspection, however, while a few bits of dropped packaging were indeed lurking among the rockpools, it was sewage waste which was the major culprit, discharged into the sea and washed straight up on to the beach. Cramond, in north-west Edinburgh, is particularly bad, apparently – Scottish Water is currently investigating to pinpoint why so much debris washes up on the beach there.
According to the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), which coordinated the clean-up, Scottish Water has checked sewage pipes in the area and have found no problem. Yet there is no doubt that a problem exists somewhere: The evidence is all over the beach.
We picked up thousands of wet wipes. There were huge clumps of