Scotland's beaches 'dirtiest in UK' with two bays singled out for their litter
dailyrecord.co.ukScotland's beaches are the dirtiest in the UK, according to a new report.Environmental Standards Scotland (ESS) said on Tuesday that beaches in the country are worse for litter than those found in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
The public body says that more must be done to clean up Scotland’s marine litter.The most recent assessment of UK beaches found that there was a median of 919 items of litter found per 100 metres of shore in Scotland, compared with 585 per 100 metres in England, 258 in Northern Ireland, and 103 in Wales.
The two Scots beaches included in the assessment were Cramond Beach in Fife and Lunderston Bay in Inverclyde, which had median litter counts of 558.5 and 1279 litter respectively.According to ESS, Scotland's beaches present a "significant danger" to marine wildlife such as dolphins and seals that can swallow plastic litter or become caught in fishing nets and ropes.
A study carried out in Orkney showed that 80 per cent of marine life collected from the seagrass beds contained microplastics.CEO of ESS Mark Roberts commented: "Marine litter is a problem in Scotland endangering our marine species, spoiling our beaches and introducing potentially harmful microplastics into the human food chain.
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