HEADING to the beach might be many people’s idea of a perfect summer holiday, but few would opt to clean up pollution while doing so.
Sorcha Cantwell, on the other hand, had been taking in the sights and sounds of the north-west Highlands when she noticed the sheer volume of marine plastics discarded across the coastal beauty spots.
As a volunteer with both the British Divers Marine Life Rescue and the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme, she was fully aware of the danger such material can pose to wildlife as.
And so Sorcha, who works at a call centre in Greenock, decided to roll up her sleeves and for her summer holiday she went up to Durness in Sutherland and worked her way down past Stoer and Achmelvich beaches, Dun Canna and Leckmelm – both north and south of Ullapool.
She said: “Speaking with other people who are trying to combat marine rubbish and pollution, I realised that this isn't something we can just sit by and expect others to address.
“The scale of waste and pollution is reaching a level that means no one person or organisation can deal with it. It is going to take lots of effort from many sources.
"Ideally we should be looking at stopping the amount of rubbish going into our seas, but until that happens then we need to do what we can to remove what is there, and that means everyone coming together and doing what they can.
"I wanted to get out there, try to do my bit and perhaps raise awareness of the issue – something that many people seem either oblivious to or talk about but don’t do anything about.”
In a week, Sorcha has removed 503.5 KG of rubbish from the beaches, including rope, twine, boxes and waste that comes from industrial fishing and aqua-culture in Scotland and even from as far away as America – carried over by the Gulf Stream.
At one beach by Stoer she was almost overwhelmed by the level of rubbish she encountered and ended up making a selfie video which was viewed more than 4500 times and caught the attention of people in the area.
Volunteers from Lochinver, Assynt and Ullapool then came to join her and help pick up the waste
At Dun Canna, a beach that local volunteers took over 300 bags of rubbish from in May, she was joined by the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s Noel Hawkins who used her visit as a reason to launch a new ‘Beach Clean Station’ – a large container with litter pickers and bags intended to encourage visitors to pick up rubbish whilst at the beach.
The landowners, Keanchulish Estate, have been trying to combat the rubbish themselves and have welcomed help to try and tackle the issue and will be providing assistance and support to remove the rubbish gathered.
“Sorcha’s efforts have been amazing,” said Noel. “We met through BDMLR and have a mutual love of the sea and marine environment, but to see someone give up their time and put so much effort into doing so much to help clean our shores is quite inspiring.
"If people visiting the highlands or touring the NC500 all did even a fraction of this, we would really be able to make a start when it comes to cleaning our beaches and keeping the Highland shores beautiful and safe.”
It is estimated that more than eight million tons of plastics are dumped in the sea every year, with some studies arguing that there will be more plastic in the sea than fish by 2050.
Sorcha has set up a facebook page to report what she did and what she hopes to do in future at facebook.com/Scottish-Coastal-Cleanup-Project-1896158130708371
The Largs woman also set up a donations page and anyone looking to contribute can visit justgiving.com/crowdfunding/sorcha-cantwell1
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