Out of Sight, Out of Mind

At first glance Scapa can sometimes look quite clean, but closer inspection shows the litter has been covered over with wind blown sand, Investigate a little deeper and the litter is trapped beneath stones which have been moved by winter storms.

 

In one 20m stretch the predominant type of litter was short lengths of rope, polypropylene strapping and small sheets of blue plastic.

click to enlarge.

The strapping is extremely strong and is often found in an intact loop without having been cut, but the plastic sheet breaks up easily and is difficult to pick up.

These two types of litter combined make a  risk of entanglement and ingestion.

 

It didn't take long to fill a bucket...

 

and spot the first puffin of the year.

Nurdles at Newark

The sun shone this weekend on a visit to Newark in Deerness. The warmth had caused a swarm of flies to appear. These in turn had encouraged flocks of startlings to converge into a murmur as they pursued the flies along the beach. Small groups of turnstones joined in. Briefly, it felt like Spring!

A closer look at the strand line where the turnstones were feeding revealed a disturbing amount of plastic confetti and nurdles. In the first area I looked, a patch of sand about the size of my own hand was covered with fragments of plastic and nurdles - the pre-production pellets that look exactly like fish eggs. If I could find so much so quickly and in such a small area then there must be uncountable numbers.
What exactly were the birds eating....?

Plastic confetti + nurdles + sea water = plastic soup

Not very far away there were some balloons which had obviously travelled a fair distance. I think the nearest Pizza Hut is in Inverness over a hundred miles away - of course they needn't necessarily have come from the nearest Pizza Hut.

potential turtle food?

Latex balloons are particularly favoured by turtles. Though the latex is biodegradeable it takes so long for it to decompose that it can do a great deal of damage through ingestion, and the ribbon is an entanglement hazard.

 



The fine weather encouraged a lot of folk on to the beaches this weekend and it was brilliant to see other people picking up plenty of pieces!

PU3P at Dingieshowe and Skaill

Thanks to the RSPB and Orkney Islands Council Waste Services we have a couple of new stickers on bins this weekend. At Dingieshowe, which is a beach with a big marine litter problem, there is a small bin with a new sticker. Hopefully it will work as a reminder and regular visitors to the beach might be encouraged to bring their own bags to remove litter and take it away with them as well.

 

The Pick Up Three Pieces message was initiated by children but with the support of the RSPB it is hoped that stewardship for local beaches will be undertaken by the wider community and everyone will participate year round to look after 'their beach'.

 

 

At Skaill in the West Mainland the 1100ltr bin is ready for its share of litter. This iconic beach is visited by plenty of local folk and visitors from around the world. Now there is a designated place for visitors to deposit marine litter and contribute to reducing litter around our coasts and removing some of the hazards for wildlife.

 

 

A two minute clean up around the bin area included a fluorescent light tube, monofilamanet line and the usual handful of lighters, plastic lids, shotgun shell casings and cut off ends of rope and netting.

 

 

Why not put a photo of what you have removed on the Pick Up Three Pieces Facebook page?

 

 

Adopt a beach.

If you wonder about the effect you are having as you remove only a few pieces of marine litter at a time from the coastline, why not adopt a beach, or even a section of a beach. It might be one you go to regularly anyway. I regularly visit a beach which has no litter bins at all, so unless folk are going there with the purpose of picking it up and taking a bag or container, its unlikely that they will pick it up on impulse. The winter storms continue, but I can see the difference my efforts in one area have made in January alone.

 

Its hard to prioritise and measure the amount of marine litter you pick up. Measuring by weight or volume doesn't account for all the smaller and potentially more deadly pieces that weigh very little.
I prioritise picking up things that are likely to blow off the land or back out to sea - plastic bags and balloons, plastic bottles, as well as shiny scraps of wrappers. Anything that could pose a risk of entaglement like net and ropes, or anything with a closed loop or ring.

Some marine litter is just too remote to carry out like this collection on the shore near Billia Croo.

Winter Storms

All over Orkney's beaches the winter storms have deposited a huge amount of marine litter - a great deal of it is plastic.

 

Dingieshowe is covered in debris which is a danger to wildlife, particularly the seal colony on Copinsay.

 

Pets can pick up plastic too!

 

Over at Lamb Holm we found a lot of polystyrene and perennial plastic bottles, balloons and...

a lamb!

 

 

Mrs McRae and Millie

My dog, Millie, and I were at Scapa beach a few weeks ago and found this strange creature washed up! This was more than 3 pieces and we could have gathered many times that amount if we had more arms to carry it. Remember every little bit picked up could help to save the lives of marine creatures. If you visit beaches regularly it's easy to make a habit of picking up 3 pieces. I'm looking forward to wearing my badge - or maybe pinning it to Millie's collar!

Join the S Team!

In 2012 children at Glaitness School established a group called the S Team ( S for Scapa) and took responsibility for removing some of the marine litter that was building up on our local beach. They found out that it was a global problem and seriously affecting animals by entangling them or being eaten by them. Plastic bags look like jellyfish to a turtle and shiny fragments of crisp packets look like fish to a bird!

 

With the help of Orkney Islands Council and Scapa Flow Landscape Partnership we established a new bin at Scapa to try to encourage everyone to Pick Up 3 Pieces when they visit the beach. Classes got together and made visits to bag some bruck, not just once, but over and over again!

 

Did you know that plastics don't ever biodegrade they just break down into smaller and smaller pieces?

This year as well as visiting the beach to clean up we hope to encourage more people in our community to Pick Up 3 Pieces too! Every time a class at Glaitness go to Scapa to bag some bruck they are being active global citizens and they earn a badge. This year we would like to offer more people a badge as a reward for Picking Up 3 Pieces. So, if you are out for a walk at Scapa, or any other beach or shore, please Pick Up 3 Pieces and send us a photo to publish on this blog (or if you prefer we will put it on the noticeboard in school) and you will earn a badge which you can pick up from the school office.

 

Send your photos to pickup3pieces@gmail.com - we look forward to seeing them!