Bags overboard

In quoting five “beaches” in Aberdeenshire, you simply  reveal that the problem is largely unrecorded, given the  many locations which are not referenced.

The fact that some of the locations you do reference have no reported figure is also a slight on the volunteers who do sterling work in cleaning these shorelines.

A visit to the St Cyrus Nature Reserve at the moment would in fact reveal a waste skip full  of rubbish picked up by  volunteers.

I would also question some of the impressions given by the article. Yes, plastic bottles left by visitors are a problem, but there is a much bigger unreported issue. On our frequent beach cleans in Johnshaven, the residue of plastic (supermarket) bags are much in evidence.

Many of these bags have the handles knotted. Why? Because they are used to gather rubbish on board the craft which roam the seas off our coast, and when full the bags are tossed into  the sea.

This is by far the biggest cause of beach litter, certainly on the east coast, and is a problem to which our authorities appear to have no solution.

Niall Young

Seaview Terrace

Johnshaven, Montrose