Environment

Convincing ferries to cut plastic waste

29 March 2018

Young environmental campaigners from Glasgow have enlisted Scotland’s best-known ferry operator, Caledonian MacBrayne, in their campaign to ban disposable plastic straws.

Known as the Ocean Defenders, the group from Sunnyside Primary School have highlighted drinking straws as a classic example of damaging single-use plastics: unnecessary, wasteful of resources and, in this case, not even recyclable.

They have been promoting their campaign #NaeStrawAtAw all around Scotland, and quickly caught the attention of the CalMac community board.

'When Sunnyside Ocean Defenders first got in contact with CalMac last year we knew we needed to hear more about their campaign,' said environmental manager Klare Chamberlain. 'The company is extremely concerned about marine litter and the blight it can have on the marine environment across the west coast.

Their Ocean Defenders group provided both CalMac and the community board with an extremely informative presentation highlighting the dangers of single-use plastics and provided us with samples of suitable alternatives which we could adopt. Environmental manager Klare Chamberlain

'We have been working with our suppliers over the last year or so to identify alternatives to single-use plastics, and with our waste contractors to ensure than any alternatives can be suitably managed.

'Our procedures are also changing so that straws are only available on request. All other sources of single use plastics on board are also under review and we hope to be able to announce further changes over the coming months.'