Following my post on litter and outdoor recreation (see here), I was contacted by Tom Colville who had visited Knoydart a few days before me in his boat. He confirmed my observations that litter was confined to the coasts and noted that it was particularly prominent along the outer part of Loch Nevis and that “the small inaccessible craggy bays opposite Inverie, were strewn with the largest heaps of marine detritus”. Unfortunately he had no photos but did send me one from Ulva, now owned by the local community, taken the year before along with some commentary:
“In May 2022 I found a flotsam littered high waterline on the south side of Ulva at Carcaig Bay where it was impossible not to walk on the accumulated plastic debris. So few people will ever see this type of place. The entire high waterline was plastic trash. Several larger pieces of flotsam, now washed up in there, obviously had broken from pontoon systems far, far upwind. These parts are actually clearly visible on Bing maps satellite view. ”
“The real problem is that on an entrapment bay such as this – open to the west and south west- the lighter flotsam gets blown well inland in severe storms . Bottles and cannisters, bags and plastic cups etc. are carried up slopes. Stuff from the high water lines can be found tangled in vegetation even hundreds of yards inland, carried uphill by the wind during severe storms, and of course broken antlers, and carcases of deer are sometimes found snagged in ropes and nets”.
Tom’s comments reminded me that I had been meaning to blog about the Scottish Government’s approach to marine litter at Loch Long, which forms an enormous “entrapment bay” in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park. A month ago the local MSP, Jackie Baillie, asked the Scottish Government three questions about this in the Scottish Parliament.
The Scottish Government’s responses to Jackie Baillie
1) S6W-17196 Jackie Baillie: To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to tackle marine litter.
Mairi McAllan: The Scottish Government is tackling marine litter with actions detailed in our Marine Litter Strategy (see here) which aims to address the amount of litter entering the marine environment, to achieve ecological, economic and social benefits. Our Strategy and action plan was refreshed in September 2022 and focuses on the most problematic types of marine litter including fishing and aquaculture gear, sewage-related debris, and plastic pellets. The Strategy will drive forward our work over the next five years and co-ordinate the efforts of our stakeholders and partners, working at a national and international level to help tackle this global problem.
The many actions include: improving the management of end of life fishing and aquaculture gear to reduce litter and improve recycling rates, contributing to our circular economy; working across the UK administrations to put an end to pollution caused by wet wipes containing plastic; and developing international solutions to prevent spills of plastic pellets (nurdles), which can be found on our beaches and risk the health of our marine wildlife. In addition to preventative actions, we are also supporting litter removal, whether off shore through the funding of KIMO’s Fishing for Litter scheme, or at our rivers, with Keep Scotland Beautiful’s Upstream Battle project.
Comment: yet another Scottish Government strategy full of fine words but very few concrete actions. Whether all the “improving”, “contributing”, “working” and “developing” has actually changed anything for the better since the Marine Litter Strategy was first issued in 2014 is unclear.
2) S6W-17197 Jackie Baillie: To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the pilot work to tackle litter sinks at the head of Loch Long at Arrochar.
Mairi McAllan: Since the inception of work to better understand the Arrochar litter sink in 2017, we have determined that approximately half of the litter has originated from the River Clyde catchment, and half from the open sea. We are using this knowledge to focus efforts on tackling the source of the litter over which we can have most influence, that from the River Clyde.
As such, the recently updated Marine Litter Strategy for Scotland includes actions on riverine litter, to prevent it and to support its removal. Our key delivery partner Keep Scotland Beautiful and their Upstream Battle project enables communities, businesses, and schools on the River Clyde to develop local solutions to reduce littering, and also support its clean-up. This initiative also supports citizen science and the outputs will inform further riverine litter policy, aiming to reduce and intercept litter before it reaches our seas. In addition, we are also engaging with Glasgow City Council to consider more options to increase litter removal from the River Clyde.
Comment: the claim that the area over which the Scottish Government has most influence is riverine litter is highly misleading and in actually contradicted in the Marine Litter Strategy. Much of the litter in the Clyde Estuary and elsewhere on the coast of Scotland originates from the fishing industry whose vessels are licensed through Marine Scotland. The Scottish Government could use those licensing powers to impose stringent controls on the industry but has chosen not to do so.
3) S6W-17195 Jackie Baillie: To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how much has been spent on tackling litter sinks at Loch Long in each of the last 10 years, and how much will be spent in 2023-24.
Mairi McAllan: The bay at Arrochar was chosen as the location of a marine litter case study in Loch Long in 2017. Since then, a total of £183,827.78 has been spent on litter removal at the site. This includes the cost of heavy machinery contracting, haulage, and the disposal of the mixed debris. Costs have varied annually according to the amount of material washed ashore requiring removal.
| Date | Amount spent (£) |
| May 2018 | £29,720.35 |
| May 2019 | £36,787.69 |
| March 2020 | £37,686.83 |
| March 2021 | £25,310.11 |
| March 2022 | £54,322.80 |
Funding of these clean-ups has been provided when available. There is currently no funding allocated for the same operation in the financial year of 2023-24. This work is eligible for funding through Marine Fund Scotland https://www.gov.scot/policies/marine-and-fisheries-grants/
Comment: The Marine Litter Strategy issued last September reported that the Scottish Government had “Committed £500,000 to begin to address the problem of litter sinks around the coast and to develop policy to address marine plastics, which has involved working with community groups. Arrochar (Loch Long) was identified as a case study area and is being monitored and maintained. 1,002 tonnes of litter has been removed from this litter sink between 2018-2022.” A year later no funding has been allocated to fund the clear-up of litter at the head of Loch Long where the rubbish on the beach was clearly visible from the road a few weeks ago.
While prevention is important what Loch Long and all the other litter strewn beaches around Scotland shows is the amount the Scottish Government has allocated to clearing up marine rubbish is insufficient. The Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority could have been taking a lead here, either by calling on the Scottish Government to provide far more financial support to the local community at Arrochar, who have been trying to address for years, or on Argyll and Bute Council to use some of the monies they have raised through their extortionate charges at the Cobbler car park to be used to clear up the eyesore on the beach beyond. Instead, they have done nothing.
How effective is the action being taken to prevent plastic entering the sea?
The Marine Litter Strategy implicitly recognises that plastic is the most significant cause of marine pollution and includes a number of actions to reduce the amount that enters the sea. To date, however, these are piecemeal and fail to tackle the cause of the problem.
As Tom Colville put it:
“I am old enough to remember a cruising visit to Canna in the late 1960’s. The outer High waterlines in clefts to the east of the village bay did trap plenty of tidal debris. Some fragments of flotsam, including broken wood, hatches and doors etc from the convoys and the many hundreds of wartime ships lost, 15- 20 years before, still remained. Back then commercial fishing gear along the Atlantic seaboard still largely consisted of wooden fish crates, hemp ropes and tarred nets with cork floats. We could also find many of those beautifully coloured heavy Glass fishing floats which I was told were still in common usage in Spain and Portugal…back then… although slowly being replaced by spherical alloy ones. No plastic…”
In the last fifty years, plastic has replaced a multitude of different materials and is now omni-present on both land and sea. Tinkering around the edges as the Scottish Government has done though its ban on plastic-stemmed cotton buds and carrier bag levy is unlikely to do much to reduce the amount of plastic entering our seas. As one plastic item is banned, another becomes prevalent, like the millions of plastic tree shelters being funded by the Scottish Government through the forestry grants scheme and being used across our National Parks.
We therefore need a comprehensive plan across Scotland which aims to stop using or to replace plastics where possible by products that are carbon neutral, i.e not a byproduct of the oil industry, and not polluting to the natural environment. The Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority could be playing its part in this, prompted (or shamed?) by the plaster litter sink on its patch at the head of Loch Long. However, despite its professed wish to put climate and nature first in its new draft National Park Partnership Plan currently out for consultation (see here), there is not even a mention of the word plastic, let alone any proposals that would reduce its use. A ban on plastic tree shelters would be a small start.
Removing plastic from the coast has to be a good thing. The Clyde is reported as having 75,000 plastic fragments per 1km2 of sea. For years Arrochar has battled with walls of unrecyclable plastic detritus. Removal is an industrial task beyond the heroic efforts of volunteers. Elsewhere, litter sinks and bays close to commercial harbours seem to be the worst, with fishing debris prevalent. A levy on vessels used for fishing/aquaculture maybe a funding option alongside the KIMO ‘Fishing for Litter’ programme. Ports need proper disposal facilities. The Park Authority should press for more action but so should VisitScotland and the Scottish Tourism Alliance and insist other sectors get their house in order. Their national goal of Scotland being ‘the world leader in 21st century tourism’ being made much harder when our beaches, coastal waters and seafood – key stones in our tourism offer – are contaminated with plastic. To be fair marine debris also arrives on our shores from across the Atlantic and I have a collection of glass floats and some polyprop ex fishing nets used in the garden from 60s and 70s.
Thank you Nick.
In remote places along Scotland’s intricate coastline, like Carcaig, around loch sides inland and where seasonal flood waters in river valleys carry debris, few people will usually ever get close enough to be aware of the sheer scale of it.
In order to focus the efforts of any volunteers willing to take local action, the first thing is for boat users and walkers who come across such locations to have access to a central database on which to “flag” what they spot.
Well publicised locations like Arrochar and so many harbours are right in full view within some less fortunate communities.
What is in fact needed is a national database, similar to the long established “www.Boat launch” one. (A duty for staff at Marine Scotland ???)The exact locations where wind and tide borne trash regularly end up might be entered by concerned members of the public on a live map, perhaps including photos. Then, if and when any clean-up is effective, the flag might change colour. Obviously, some remote waterside “entrapment” locations will always be there, and they need to be revisited at regular intervals. Larger scales of clean-up, essential for ecology to thrive might even need to become annual.
Most of your comments come down to lack of budget. Under current devolution arrangements the Scottish Government can’t create debt to fund investment – unlike the UK Gov. The UK Gov also decides how much tax collected in Scotland returns to the Scot Gov – currently about 30% of the total. So with a relatively small budget and no access to debt funding, the Scot Gov is very constrained in how it can spend and must constantly re-prioritise. Clearly marine litter is not a UK Gov priority. The Tory response is “we’re doing a survey every couple of years”. Labour’s “A Plan for Nature” makes no mention of marine litter and in fact only discusses litter in the context of recyclilng. Hopefully a future UK Gov will include more emphasis on Scottish priorities.
The entire revenue collected through annual lease of the Crown Estate seabed in Scotland now passes directly to the Scottish treasury. The huge sums raised from Marine seabed leasing for oil and wind projects, subsea cables, harbour infrastructure and private and commercial moorings everywhere all now pass direct to the devolved Scottish exchequer. There is No actual lack of revenue at Holyrood derived from the Marine estate around Scotland. This ” lack of funding” excuse is a poor reason for failure to facilitate collection and disposal of shoreside trash across Scotland. To attempt to pass blame to Westminster for all this, and so much else to do with the environment which fall to be managed in Scotland and then fail to elect representatives in Scotland who care enough to act on Scotland’s own legacy of water-born trash, hardly bodes well for future generations of Scots?
Waste management is a fully devolved responsiblity this is true – but is nontheless constrained by the way devolution is funded. Of course it’s also constrained by the UK gov’s attempts to undermine even areas like this that are fully devolved – as we’re now seeing with DRS. Regarding CES lease revenue, I wasn’t aware that this was ring-fenced to marine projects. On a related note, still seems a bit weird that in the 21st century our seabeds are owned by a hereditary family and not the public.
I would applaud if this amount had been spent clearing litter at the head of Loch Long. I would ask the question why the litter is still there? The figures quoted £29720.35 2018 ,£36787.69, 2019, £37686.83 2020, 25.310.11 2021, £54322.80 2022.are questionable The head of Loch Long has never been clear,I would like to see a breakdown of these very questionable figures!
Having taken part in numerous beach cleans on Skye and in the Northwest it’s obvious that in these areas the vast majority of debris originates from fishing or fish farming. Often a group of volunteers would collect 50 or more bags of litter and some people would go all day without picking up a single can or plastic bottle, although some plastic bottles or tubs had foreign writing on them. Obviously some litter originates hundreds or thousands of miles away and a percentage of fishing gear will have been lost accidentally rather than deliberately discarded. Therefore the Scottish government can’t always control the amount of litter being washed up and needs to do more to support community groups or charities such as JMT to clean up the inevitable debris which will always wash up. As an example of the lack of a coordinated policy when JMT did beach cleans on Skye Highland council would charge them to take away what was collected, but when they did cleans on Harris Western Isles Council would remove the collected rubbish for free and give JMT a small amount of money, I think it was £10 per volunteer day for helping the council fulfil their statutory duty to keep public places clean. Clearly the Scottish government needs to force all councils to follow the example of Western Isles council and make sure councils fulfil their duty to clean up litter, whether the council does this directly or supports community groups/conservation charities to do it for them.
If all of the spend is correct,five years of collecting rubbish then why have I been able to collect crisp packets with the date of 2017 on them. It would appear that the litter was not uplifted very well for five years,yet a massive spend of just under £190K,love to see a breakdown of where the money has gone?