An art competition focussing on the ‘Arrochar litter sink’ has been launched for schoolchildren in three areas of Scotland.
Litter – much of it plastic – at the head of Loch Long has been seen as a serious problem for many years, with about 62,000 items of litter washing onto the foreshore every year.
It is estimated that Arrochar receives about 11% of all the marine litter entering the Clyde, whether from the Irish Sea or the river itself.
Now pupils at primary schools in Argyll & Bute, North Ayrshire and South Ayrshire are able to enter the Marine Litter Art Competition, organised by Keep Scotland Beautiful in collaboration with GRAB Trust.
It encourages pupils to think about litter dropped locally and how it might end up travelling and impacting the community on Loch Long.
A live lesson has taken place already and a workshop planned to support and motivate their projects, before submitting their final piece in February.
The top eight schools will each be given £250 towards attending an event at Arrochar Village Hall next March to showcase their creation and journey with other schools and local stakeholders.
The overall winner will then be selected and will receive a trip to the Sea Life Loch Lomond Aquarium in Balloch.
Heather McLaughlin, campaigns and social innovation manager at Keep Scotland Beautiful, said: “We’re so excited to be launching this art competition to get young people involved in tackling marine litter.
“We know that around 80% of marine litter comes from land, and tackling the issue at source is vital to protect our precious waterways.
“In previous years we’ve had some amazing submissions through our various art competitions and I’m sure this year will be no different. Young people across the country are so passionate about our environment and their artwork is always so inspiring.”
In 2019 environmental engineer Dr Tom Scanlon produced a CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) film which showed how over a time span of eight days of plastic litter is carried by tides and a predominantly south-westerly wind towards hot spots around Arrochar, Helensburgh and Lochgoilhead.
It followed a study published the previous year by Bill Turrell of Marine Scotland Science analysing the causes of the ‘Arrochar Litter Sink’
He stated that large volumes of dead seaweed, sometimes called ‘wrack’ or ‘ware’ have always accumulated on the foreshore, and were traditionally used as fertiliser in coastal villages.
Now though around 400m tonnes of plastics are produced globally every year, with up to 5% of this entering the sea though poor waste management.
Dr Turrell’s report adds: “The presence of this plastic waste in our seas means that the ‘ware’ on Arrochar foreshore is now completely mixed with pieces of plastic, from large items like buckets and shoes to almost invisibly small pieces, broken down from larger items such as plastic bags and bottles.
“This mix is now a problem to the local community, not a resource because it cannot be used as fertiliser any longer, and to date there is no known way of separating out the seaweed from the litter.”
He says there are four key factors:
- The shape of the Firth of Clyde, which is the result of the glaciers which cut it interacting with local geology.
- Prevailing winds: measurements at Prestwick show that the average annual wind blows from the SE/SW sector more than 40% of the year, at an average speed of 12 knots. Dr Turrell estimates that these prevailing winds drive the equivalent of about 3,700 cubic metres of seawater each second into the Firth of Clyde (at the surface).
- The Spin of the Earth: Owing to the shape of the Clyde, winds can blow the water at the surface into it from the Irish Sea. Dr Turrell says that water moving on the face of the earth always tries to turn right – in the northern hemisphere – so the wind- blown water entering the Clyde hugs the right hand coast, and will flow past Loch Ryan, past Girvan, Ayr, Troon, Ardrossan and Largs, ending up in the basin outside Loch Long, where it meets the outflow from the River Clyde.
- The River Clyde: At the point where the Firth of Clyde turns eastwards, outside Loch Long, freshwater from the river, plus other rivers such as the Leven, White and Black Cart Waters and Kelvin will drive a net flow outwards towards the sea. It is estimated that this flow is about 300 cubic metres of water per second.
Dr Turrell’s report states: “This means there are now two confluent flows of water reaching the basin outside Loch Long – one originating from the Irish Sea outflow and one from the River Clyde catchment area and it is assumed that both of these flows have about 20 litter items for each square kilometre of water (1m deep) within them.”
Jacqui Willis, beaches and marine litter project officer at The GRAB Trust, said of the competition: “The GRAB Trust are delighted to be able to support Keep Scotland Beautiful on this fantastic project.
“Research shows the vast majority of marine litter found at Arrochar originates elsewhere and so raising awareness around litter pathways is an important step in encouraging the behavioural changes we need to see in preventing litter at source. I’m really excited to see the competition entries!”
The first live lesson is now available online:
