Scotland: Loch Long's hidden pollution problem

DW (English)

Tucked away in the rugged Scottish Highlands, Loch Long appears pristine. But researchers have found high levels of microplastics in the water. What’s polluting one of Scotland’s most remote lochs? And what can be done to help?

Transcript

00:00Nestled in the Arocar Alps on Loch Long in the Scottish Highlands sits the village of Arocar.

00:10It could be a haven for nature lovers if not for one problem... plastic.

00:16The shoreline is covered in it.

00:20We have millions and millions of pieces of mycoplastics.

00:23When the tide is out we get kind of a mycoplastic sand just at the very head of the loch here

00:28and when the tide comes in it's more of a mycoplastic soup.

00:33Plastic waste from around the world washes up here.

00:37Jacqueline Willis works for a local environmental group.

00:41Together with local residents she regularly takes samples.

00:46The plastic is embedded in the landscape.

00:49Mixed with seaweed and algae it's formed a thick layer

00:53one meter deep hundreds of meters long along the shoreline.

00:59This is all coming up the loch.

01:02It's coming down the river, up from the Irish Sea.

01:05It's coming from all over the place.

01:07It's carelessly discarded litter.

01:10It's ending up where it's not supposed to be.

01:14Loch Long connects to the sea.

01:16Waste floats in with seawater and also flows from the nearby city of Glasgow.

01:23Hand collection doesn't go far.

01:26Heavy equipment is needed.

01:28But it's too costly for this small community.

01:32The trouble is that we can't separate the plastic

01:35from the seaweed, from the wood, from everything else

01:38so that it's just purely plastic that we're dealing with.

01:42It's the whole composite makeup of the material.

01:47Arachar lies at the very tip of Loch Long.

01:50From simulations that we've had done

01:53it looks like it mostly comes up the east side of the loch.

01:56So it's coming up the east side of the loch

01:59towards the surface of the water column

02:02and then it's ending up here and it's getting trapped up here.

02:07Scotland's biggest city, Glasgow,

02:09lies about an hour upstream along the River Clyde.

02:15Authorities estimate it's the source of half the waste in Arachar.

02:21The city has hired additional street cleaners

02:24and uses a boat to collect the worst of the river debris.

02:30Each day Alan Swift and his colleague head out onto the Clyde.

02:34They can fill up to 10 floating containers a day.

02:38It's mostly floating debris like the stuff that we've seen there.

02:46Cans, bottles, plastic.

02:49Some people still dump stuff in the river.

02:53No though, I mean we've had pianos out the river.

02:57So someone's carried a piano all the way and launched it into the river.

03:05The cleanup boat also collects larger trash along the riverbanks.

03:09Alan says they've seen real progress.

03:12The Clyde is getting cleaner.

03:16We're seeing a lot more kingfishers, otters, salmon, sea trout.

03:23Porpoises, that kind of stuff.

03:26So maybe 20 years ago you wouldn't have seen these things.

03:32But smaller plastic fragments slip through.

03:36Floating down to Loch Long and Arachar.

03:41The local primary school is right on the water.

03:45The children know the pollution all too well.

03:48We used to play there and stuff like, and now we can't because it stinks.

03:55And there's just like hundreds of litters.

03:58Sometimes we even take trips down to the loch to like see what's actually happening.

04:03And like if you step in your foot will go down like really far just in litter.

04:09It makes me feel really like angry and like sad.

04:12Because like I live literally right next to the beach.

04:16Like and it just it just smells horrible.

04:20And from my house you can smell it and it's like just it looks disgusting.

04:26Loch Long's environmental activists are focusing on education.

04:30Jacqueline Willis visits schools even in Glasgow.

04:35She explains to the children why avoiding single-use plastics and packaging matters.

04:42Meanwhile locals have continued talks with Scottish authorities.

04:46There's now a glimmer of hope.

04:48A new research project is being launched to address the problem.

04:52I get very depressed seeing it and I get, but I also get really angry.

04:58It kind of needs government level solutions.

05:01You know we need, it needs big actions.

05:04It needs things like the deposit return scheme.

05:06It needs bans on certain single-use plastic items.

05:10You know so it needs it needs big big solutions.

05:15Against the highland backdrop Arokaris plastic pollution is especially jarring.

05:21Nature's beauty has long been part of the region's identity.

05:26And its livelihood.

05:28For now.

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