For two months, Greenpeace conducted a scientific expedition aboard the Beluga II uncovering plastic on more than 30 beaches of Scotland. From May to June, researchers sailed in remote areas of the United Kingdom (UK), around Scottish coastlines, investigating beaches and wildlife habitats. Although these areas are largely unpopulated by human beings, researchers found they are subject to loads of environmental damage due to plastic.
Working with the Scottish Seabird Centre, the Marine Conservation Society, the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust, and RSPB Scotland, the Beluga II expedition discovered plastic and microplastic in the nests and beaks of seabirds as well as the habitats of seals, puffins, porpoises, and basking sharks.
Two-thirds of the world’s gannet population reside in the UK. Researchers found Bass Rock – home to more than 150,000 gannets – littered with plastic bags and fishing gear. This gannet, pictured below, was luckily helped and returned to its home without entanglement.
A whopping twelve tons of plastic enters the ocean every year, which means all of these pristine creatures are unknowingly ingesting poison. Harbor seals are subject to much of the worst abuse: potential strangulation, lashing, and tearing. Sadly, even the pups are at risk.
A petition will be delivered to Scotland’s Environmental Secretary Rosanna Cunningham asking for a bottle deposit return program. This adds a purchase charge to plastic bottled drinks, which is returned to people when they return their bottles.
But a larger impact could be had by cutting back on plastic usage overall. Corporations like Coca-Cola favor one-use only plastic versus recycled because it’s cheaper, blaming consumers for littering. But consumers aren’t asking for one-use only plastic.
Coke has a highly publicized #ShareaCoke social media campaign. An easily-filled request to help hold the Coke brand responsible for pollution by Greenpeace: Any time at all you see a coke bottle share it with the hashtags #EndOceanPlastics and #ShareaCoke.
“With a truckload of plastic entering the ocean every minute, we need urgent action from governments and from major soft drinks companies which produce billions of single-use plastic bottles every year, like Coca-Cola, to stop the flow of plastic into the sea,” offered Tisha Brown of Greenpeace UK.
Do you know how much plastic you use? Find out here: https://secure.greenpeace.org.uk/page/content/plastics-calculator
What you think is a small amount may shock you!
Look for the the full laboratory analysis of the Beluga II study later this year after. In the meantime, regardless of the devastating results, we know the benefits of going plastic-free. We can all do more to save the oceans and the life of defenseless marine animals.
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We are living in a plastic world and the Scots are no exception. We need a big plan to tackle this problem.
Every human on this planet is responsible for ocean plastic pollution !!! Fact check: name one other species of life on this planet that produces plastic as waste ???!!! Quid Pro Quo – anthropogenic behavior and enterprise is the number one threat to the continued existence of life, as we now know it, on this planet !!! We humankind need to quickly grow up and live as one with all life in our planet biosphere home before our time runs out due to our own ignorance !!! Nature is unforgiving when tampered with; and; we humankind are most definitively doing some chronic tampering !!! We must act responsibly today before there is no tomorrow ! We must take charge and clean up our global causal mess ! We can solve our self imposed dilemma ! TEMPUS FUGIT !!!
Here where IM from in the Kansas City Missouri Area we recycling cardboard like empty cases of soda pop empty plastic jugs of low fat free skim milk and all ALLUMINIUM cans I collect my cans and I take them over to the local recycling center so they can go to a local factory where they can be reused and everything like that and everything and we recycling plastic water bottles so IM glad I could do something to help out my environment and keep it happy and clean and safe so I think and feel all of us could step up and do our part of making sure we all recycle and keep this environment and our earth a much better cleaner and safer place to be and place to live that is a much cleaner and it would be even more EFFICTIVE if we all had recycling bins out in our garages our outside of our garages that we all could put like cardboard and ALUMINIUM and plastic bottles and plastic half gallon empty bottles and like our empty laundry soap and liquid fabric detergent and empty bleach bottles that are also plastic in the right bins this way we could make it all month long with recycling and so we as human beings and individuals could actually see just how much were reducing pollution and littering this way we can teach our young little ones to put their plastic juice bottles that are empty and teach our young ones to put their empty soda pop cases and empty soda pop cans in the right bins so they see just how their helping make this world and environment a much better and sufficient cleaner and healthier place to be not just for them but for all families and stuff like that
People, stop the dumping!!
Surely the Scots can do better than this?