'Fish eat the litter and then you eat the fish'

Fishermen in County Down have been landing much more than their daily catch of prawns and other fish.

Over the past year, trawlers have also brought in the equivalent of 1,100 bins bags full of rubbish.

The Fishing for Litter scheme was relaunched in 2021, after the pandemic interrupted its progress.

Fifty-five vessels have signed up, with NI Fishery Harbour Authority Environment Officer Jenny Lau heading the scheme.

"They say that eight million tonnes of plastic litter are added to the sea every single year," she told BBC News NI agriculture and environment correspondent Louise Cullen.

"For a little bit of scale, that's the equivalent of one dump truck load of litter being chucked over the edge, every single minute of the day of every single year.

"So it is an enormous problem."

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