On the shore below our cottage lies a discarded hulk of timber and steel, lying in the bladder wrack. It was once ‘Queen of Tanera’, workboat of the fish farm. People are astonished that she was simply driven onto the beach and discarded; it’s not the most conventional of retirement plans. But she’s part of the scenery now – part of the habitat, even – and the beach would be bare without her.

She’s not the only wreck around; islands seem to collect them. The hassle -to-benefit ratio of removing ex-machinery and equipment simply isn’t favourable. And with their long coastlines, islands also accumulate of floating plastic debris.

This isn’t a new problem, of course, but it is a growing one: litter on British beaches has increased by 149% since 1994, with a muddle of consequences.

There is the unsightliness, of course. The economies of many Scottish islands depend on tourism; people travel from afar for the wild, pristine beauty. They don’t appreciate a view marred by the same plastic bags and bottles they can see at home.

Other elements of the economy suffer too: livestock on the shore can be harmed by debris, and litter at sea affects the fishing fleet. One study of Scottish vessels found that more than 80% had experienced a catch restricted or contaminated by marine litter^[i].

As ever, the most unwitting victim is Nature. The seas around these islands are so rich in wildlife that inevitably suffers. Globally, 100,000 marine mammals and over one million sea birds are killed by sea litter each year; an average North Sea fulmar has 44 pieces of plastic in its stomach[ii]. The many cetacean species that make their home in our island seas mistake balloons, bags – even flipflops – for fish. The gannets of Bass Rock (the island from which they take their Latin name Sula bassana) are reduced to lining their nests with plastic bags.

A hard day’s beach cleaning, by Rob Harris

Plastic breaks down but doesn’t biodegrade; it simply disintegrates into tinier fragments which resemble plankton and are thus eaten by creatures such as barnacles and lugworms, then passed up the food-chain.

It’s such a vast, miserable problem that it can seem too daunting to tackle, but watching our lovely wild beaches becoming ever-fuller with

rubbish is just too sad. So whenever we have a gang willing hands – such as our ‘working chums’ who visit for their annual hard labour – we fill a huge load of bin-bags (separating recyclable plastics, naturally).

But – as we know – whilst rubbish accumulates easily on islands, it’s trickier to remove. Our beaches are a long way from the nearest vehicle or convenient pier. So we wait for a calm day, load bags into a dinghy and row it out to a boat, for transport across to the mainland and beyond…

This problem will persist as long as life is based on cheap plastic products, discarded improperly. Valiant campaigners are striving for better legislation and a global effort to curb it. In the meantime we’ll just keep doing what we can to clear our patch.