A busy couple of months ahead, with various marine litter/beach cleaning activities planned!
50 Years of Litter on Skye:
Last year the 50 Years of Litter on Skye team surveyed 13,909 pieces of litter across nine Skye beaches, clearing an estimated 1.5-2 tonnes of beach litter in the process. This summer (July 20th-August 3rd) they are returning to revisit some of the beaches they cleared a year ago, and visit new ones as well. Read about the Sleat beach survey and clean below.
50 Years of Litter on Skye are keen to hear your thoughts on the beach litter problem, and invite you to complete two anonymous surveys on who cleans the beaches (click here to join the survey) and where beach cleans happen and when (click here). See the flier below.
Caroy, 29th May
A combined effort between Skye Beach Cleans, Highlands & Islands Climate Action and Dunvegan Fire Brigade, on a pretty miserable day, resulted in around 20 volunteers turning out and managing to remove just under 0,5 tonnes of debris from the beach at Caroy, which is always one of the worst affected by marine litter.
Scottish Islands Federation – Marine Litter Working Group
Thanks to finally having agreed a practical surveying methodology for West Coast beaches, the results from last year’s input to the Marine Conservation Society’s Beach Watch survey are now available, and very clearly demonstrate why we have a much bigger, and different, set of problems with marine litter on the islands.
From the analysis of the survey data, the different sources of litter are also now apparent:-
This survey work is done according to the OSPAR classification system for marine litter, which does not have a category for aquaculture, so a lot of items are currently being classified as either “fishing”, or “non-sourced”, which is not entirely satisfactory, as we know that a substantial number of the items that we regularly find are very definitely from aquaculture (e.g. black feed pipe, mussel pegs, etc.). Work is therefore going on to try and persuade MCS/OSPAR that a more accurate form of classification is required.
We are also looking at a much simpler system of brief surveying – basically with images and a presence/absence or limited count – for a particular set of items from particular sources. This is under development and trial at the moment, but we hope to be able launch it later in the year.
If anyone would like to see a full copy of the 2023 report, it is available on request to skye.beachcleans@gmail.com
Scottish Coast Clean Up – Loch Bracadale Blitz – August 2024
The Scottish Coastal Clean Up team will be returning to Skye with their beach cleaning boat later this summer. Based at Portnalong, they will be aiming to clear as much debris as possible from in particular the more remote beaches and islands around the loch on Thursday 22nd and Friday 23rd August, with skips available at various places around the loch for disposal. We also hope to be able to recycle some fish box material with the help of Ocean Plastic Pots. Further info nearer the date!
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