Fishing for Litter is a voluntary initiative, led by KIMO UK and supported through the Fisheries and Seafood Scheme (FaSS). The project engages with fishers, facilitating collection of litter at sea to be disposed of appropriately at participating ports and harbours. Simultaneously, there is ongoing work to raise awareness surrounding the economic and environmental impact […]
Closes 14 January 2025 The Welsh Government is consulting on marine licence exemption proposals. These will inform an order under Part 4, Section 74 of the Marine and Coastal Access Act. A full list of activities proposed to be exempt from requiring a marine licence are included in the consultation document. They include: maintenance of coast […]
Scientists from CEFAS – the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science – have published pioneering research modelling how non-native species can be transported across the ocean on floating marine debris. They used a novel modelling approach, adapting a computer model originally designed to predict the distribution of oil following an oil spill, to uncover […]
In November 2021, Defra launched a consultation on proposals to ban the supply of single-use plastic plates, cutlery, and balloon sticks and expanded and extruded polystyrene food and drinks containers. The consultation took place as part of the 25 Year Environment Plan ambition to eliminate avoidable plastic waste by 2042. The responses have now been […]
Closes 4th January 2021. The Scottish Government is consulting on the introduction of market restrictions on the most commonly littered single-use plastic items found on European beaches. This would effectively ban these items. The results of the consultation will be used to inform policy and any future legislation as Scotland seeks to match the requirements […]
OSPAR has published a scoping study on best practices for the design and recycling of fishing gear as a means to reduce quantities of fishing gear found as marine litter in the North East Atlantic. Both unintentional and intentional loss of fishing gear at sea result in marine litter and negative environmental impacts. The study […]
The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) has released a paper summarising 25 years of research into marine litter on the seafloor across Northern Europe. The research, spanning the period from 1992 to 2017, has revealed changes in what makes up plastic litter in the marine environment over time, with a decrease in […]
Nurdles, also known as mermaids tears, are tiny little pellets of pre-production plastic and can be found washed up on beaches around the UK. It is thought that these nurdles make it into the sea due to mismanagement in factories which make their way into waterways as well as nurdles being accidentally distributed during transit. Nurdles are […]
An article entitled: “Marine anthropogenic litter on British beaches: A 10-year nationwide assessment using citizen science data” has recently been published by a group of scientists. The data is from Marine Conservation Society (MCS) Beachwatch surveys which have been taking place by volunteers for more than a decade. The main findings from this article are […]
Results from the Marine Conservation Society’s Great British Beach Clean (GBBC) have been announced. The GBBC is a four day event each September where just less than 6,000 volunteers helped clean 364 beaches around the UK in 2016. At each beach clean volunteers surveyed the type and abundance of litter collected. In 2016 268,384 pieces […]