Community beach clean stations to tackle pollution
- Published
Melvaig in Wester Ross is one of the beaches to get a community beach cleaning station
Communities in the west Highlands are using beach clean stations to help tackle pollution on their beaches.
Local residents and visitors can leave rubbish they pick up in large plastic boxes, which are emptied once full.
The Scottish Wildlife Trust's Living Seas Project has set up a station at Melvaig, near Gairloch, in Wester Ross.
Two others are also to be made available on the Coigach peninsula, while a station has already been delivered to Staffin on Skye.
Residents of Melvaig had requested a station, and its delivery at the weekend was marked with a beach clean.
Rubbish collected at Melvaig
Industrial waste was among items gathered in the beach clean
More than 1,000kg (2,204lbs) of rubbish - mostly plastic ropes, nets and fish farm pipes - were cleared away. The owners of two local fishing boats have sponsored the new station.
The Living Seas Project's first beach clean station was established at Dun Canna north of Ullapool in 2017.
Rubbish cleared from that beach included tin cans from fish factory ships - known as klondykers - that would anchor in Loch Broom off Ullapool to process mackerel in the 1970s to early 90s.
The beach clean station at Melvaig