Two tonnes of marine-harming materials have been recycled thanks to Mallaig harbour’s role in a UK ocean clean up initiative.
Participating in the Ocean Recovery Project, organised by Keep Britain Tidy, Mallaig cooperated with Scottish Coastal Clean Up, Ocean Plastic Pots (OPP), and other organisations to help convert discarded fishing net and rope into new flower pots.
The recycled material, which was processed at OPP’s Glasgow hub, came from around 10 tonnes recovered from beach cleans and the fishing industry in Mallaig and islands such as Eigg, Mull, Coll, Canna, and Skye.
OPP also worked with harbours in Inverness and Dunbar on the project.
Estimated to make up 10 per cent of plastic waste in the oceans, ‘ghost nets’, as discarded fishing nets are sometimes labelled, are a serious danger to wildlife.
The nets can be difficult to see and will continue to catch animals as long as they drift. The presence of entangled prey draws larger predators, meaning a wide variety of species can become caught and ultimately killed.
Neil Hembrow, Ocean Recovery Project manager at Keep Britain Tidy, said: “Plastic pollution is a threat to our oceans and to marine life that calls them home. The Ocean Recovery Project tackles this threat by intercepting and recovering these plastics and then turning them into something useful.”
In total nine harbours and about 40 organisations around the UK participated in the project, and over 90 tonnes of net and rope was recycled.
Funding was provided by the ScottishPower Foundation.