It's lovely - BUT

A radiant blast of sunshine between the clouds,  frothy waves licking over the sand,  heaps of seaweed deposited along the strand combine to create the image of a perfect winter afternoon on the coast. 

 But wait - (and see the collage attached)  all the  seaweed heaps are tangled with plastic debris, mostly from fishing boats (rope and line and netting and  pieces of trays and  crates), along with the usual disposable junk strewn around the beach and less visibly,  the tiny pellets known as nurdles that sink into the sand or swirl around in the water to be ingested by birds, fish, reptiles, cetaceans and lower life forms. (They also get into us.)

 Anyone who has been following Blue Planet 2  will have heard David Attenborough's warning:
 “Unless the flow of plastics and industrial pollution into the ocean is reduced, marine life will be poisoned by them for many centuries to come.” 


I don't think I've seen such a quantity of plastic rubbish on the beach in over 20 years. While the larger pieces are easy enough to collect and remove, the fragments and filaments embedded in the sand and the seaweed are impossible to remove. They will remain in ever increasing numbers.


What a catastrophe this is. How can we ever put it right?