by Peggy Semler
A relatively quiet beginning to the season started with a regular clean at Caroy beach on 25th April, a beach which is always horrendously covered in mainly plastic debris after the winter! The usual skip load of marine litter was removed by the volunteers!
Bracadale Blitz 2026: Between 21st and 25th May, we were involved in a further blitz of the beaches in Loch Bracadale and nearby Loch Eynort. This is part of a collaborative programme of beach cleans on Skye and the Small Isles, coordinated by the Marine Litter Working Group of the Scottish Islands Federation, which forms part of the Skye & Small Isles Beach Litter Recycling Project, now into its fourth year. Once again, the Scottish Coastal Clean Up Project brought their boat, the Curlew, and the Ocean Recovery Project were there to collect as much material for recycling as possible.
Despite pretty inhospitable weather – which meant the boat could only be used for a very limited amount of time – marine litter was removed from a “new” site, Gesto and collected up at Caroy/Shagarry for the first time, as well as at regular hot spots, Ardtreck Point and Loch Eynort.
More than 400 hours of volunteer effort went into this exercise over the five days, but due to the weather, a considerable amount of collected and bagged litter remains to be recovered from Caroy and Ardtreck beaches, when weather and boat resources permit. If anyone locally might be available to help carry this out, please get in touch via the website or mailbox! It is estimated that even before the recovery of the final collections, around 1 tonne of collected beach waste was diverted to reuse, repurposing or recycling.
We are as always grateful to The Highland Council and Mowi for providing skips for disposal, but it was great to be able to send so much material away destined for more constructive purposes.
Tokavaig beach clean: Seventeen intrepid volunteers, including four youngsters, braved wind and rain to clean Tokavaig beach on 13th June. With the addition of beach rubbish from Tormore and Drumfearn beaches, the total was an estimated 180 kg of waste removed.
Marine Litter Recycling Point: We are continuing to work with other recycling groups on the island, with a view to establishing a collaborative central recycling centre for Skye & Lochalsh, within which we will have a central point for collecting, re-purposing, redistributing and onward transport to recycling for marine litter. It is envisaged this will be in Broadford.
More Beach Cleans to come! There are plans for further beach cleaning exercises this year, including in Camasunary (13 August) and a proposed return to Heaste with the SCCU (24 – 26 September). If any other community groups would like to organise beach cleans in their areas, we would only too happy to provide advice, support and publicity to them – please get in touch with us at either skye.beachcleans@gmail.com, or via our website
Would you like to become one of our new SBC Trustees? We are actively seeking new volunteers to become Trustees of the SCIO, so if you are passionate about reducing the amount of plastic pollution around our coastline, and would like to play an active role in making this happen and delivering our plans, please get in touch with us, as above!