Pollution: Bible messages in plastic bottles dumped in Bann river
- Published
Sea2it say plastic pollution is a 'huge issue' on the Bann
Environmentalists have criticised those responsible for dumping plastic bottles containing Bible verses in a river in Northern Ireland.
They say thousands of the bottles have been recovered from the River Bann in County Londonderry over a number of years.
It is not yet known who is dumping the bottles.
Andrew Bratton from Sea2it said collecting them takes up too much of their time.
"It doesn't matter if it's religious or non-religious," he told BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme.
"We have a huge issue with plastic pollution really, a legacy issue going back decades, and we are trying to address that and get the river back in the condition it should be in," he said.
"All we simply want to do is make an appeal to whoever it is, or whatever group it might happen to be. It simply isn't acceptable, or never has been acceptable, to litter the marine environment in this way."
Andrew Bratton (L) and Richard Connor are members of the Sea2it volunteer group who clear waste from the river
When the bottles first started appearing, Andrew said, some were opened in the hope that it would help identify who was responsible.
But with no identification marks to go on, the group have never been able to "politely ask whoever it is, or whatever group it is, to stop doing it," he said.
The bottles are found mostly to the north of Coleraine town centre, towards Castlerock, Andrew said.
Sea2it want to identify who is repsonsible so they can ask them to stop
That suggests the bottles are being dumped in the river most likely in the town centre area, he added.
"If it's one individual doing it they are spending an enormous amount of their time doing it, it really is on an industrial scale, thousands of bottles over many years," he said.