Pollution in the sea from plastic ropes
In the sound below our house a very high tide a month or two back pushed
the accumulated dead seaweed further up the shore. This revealed hundreds
of thin strands of plastic, derived from multi-filament plastic ropes which had
disaggregated.
The source of the washed up rope fragments would have been varied: fish
farms, mussel farms, fishing boats, creel ropes, yachtsmen’s ropes … Every
high tide washes up more fragments.
In my view, no marine activity, including creel fishing, can be truly sustainable
until the use of non-biodegradable ropes has come to an end. But I cannot
see this happening anytime soon. Is there any business currently researching
and developing such ropes?
In the pictures below, many of the white strands visible are plastic rope, not
plant material. The lower picture shows roles of new polypropylene rope and
new fishing nets outside a fisherman’s shed: one of the sources of the
problem. Lobster pots are just as bad.
A View from Argyll
James Fenton’s perspective
on current conservation issues
Click here for previous blogs
There is now a new
Climate change & land use section
*October 2019*
James Fenton’s latest paper, first published
online at www.fenton.scot
9 October 2019
WOODLAND OR OPEN GROUND?
Scenarios for the persistence of woodland
in the presence of grazing
The Highlands of Scotland as an example
Note: I have recently added new papers to the peat-
land page. These consider the long-term dynamics of
ombrotrophic peatlands.
My latest essay A
Landscape Lost was
published in May 2020
in the Geopoetics
Journal ‘Stravaig 8,
Part 2’
This summarises my
views on how we are
treating (losing) the
Highland landscape
Click here to view
