Plastic pollution on stunning Skye still trashing environment 50 years after it was first raised

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Plastic pollution trashing the environment on beautiful Skye for half a century has been raised in a new film.‘50 years of litter on Skye’, a short film produced by Loughborough University, hopes to highlight the issue of coastal pollution on the island beauty spot - and the efforts of researchers and environmentalists fighting to keep the beaches clean.Working closely with local groups, a team of scientists visited the island’s remote shores last summer to analyse the extent of the litter washed up by ocean currents.It comes after lead researcher Dr Tom Stanton found a 50-year-old academic paper which warned about the impact of plastics and rubbish being brought to Skye by sea.The 1972 report, by Prof Gerald Scott of Aston University, studied two of the island’s most remote beaches - and recorded the washed-up litter carpeting what should have been idyllic coves.Prophetically, he warned the problem of plastic pollution would only continue to grow.It comes as a study last year found worldwide plastic production has increased 20 times faster than recycling capacity over the past ten years - with nearly 70million tons of short-life plastic waste last year alone.The film follows the team as they discover isolated beauty spots on Skye such as Camasunary - only accessible on foot or by boat - that 50 years on, remain carpeted in plastics and discarded fishing equipment.Retracing Prof Scott’s steps, Dr Stanton and PhD researcher Melissa Schiele, along with a team of more than a dozen researchers, visited the island for two weeks last August.Dr Stanton said: “I read Scott’s paper seven years ago, when I was a master’s student, and I thought how cool it would be to go back there and see how it’s changed.“Scott found that the