Recently, we were fortunate enough to spend an incredible week on the stunning Isle of Lewis. Our good friend Violet (@sustainably.spectrum on Instagram) invited us to join her beach cleaning and to learn more about the issues the island is facing regarding washed in plastic pollution. Violet was instrumental in organising a huge multi day beach cleaning effort, alongside the Breanish village community, to clean along a beautiful stretch of coastline that overlooks the wide expanse of the Atlantic Ocean, one that is vulnerable to all the rubbish that floats amongst it.
While beach cleaning, we took the opportunity to carry out a 10m Scottish Islands Federation survey, which has been adapted from the Marine conservation societies 100m survey to deal with the high volumes of Marine litter found in many of the coastal areas on the west coast and islands in Scotland. We also carried out a Surfers against Sewage brand audit. Both surveys are useful tools for data collection, to help us better understand the types of rubbish washing up and where it is coming from, Plus they are a super way for anyone to be involved with Citizen Science.
Many items we found had travelled huge distances before washing up on Lewis’s shores, including lobster tags and buoys from North America and an array of plastic bottles from multiple countries, that we believe came off boats. We even managed to remove a huge panel that we were able to trace back to a Hamburg University and found out that it came off a boat (although the boat had been sold on recently, so we don’t know the actual location it fell off from). We also were able to shift a massive fender from a ship that had been onshore for many years. The total amount removed was 3 tonnes.
You will often find the sandy beaches in the Outer Hebrides featured on ‘best beaches’ lists and it is true, the beaches there are stunning, but it is so important to remember that the cleanness of them is often due to the hard work of the locals who beach clean on them and that unfortunately, there are many other more remote beaches that are covered in the continuing tide of plastic washing up.
We would like to thank all of the folk who made us feel so welcomed while on Lewis, who shared with us the struggles they face with marine litter and were open to discussions on possible solutions and to Violet for being a great hostess and ambassador for the area. Plans are already starting to be made for an even bigger beach cleaning effort of Lewis next year and this is all made possible from the amazing connections that we made while there.