Bag The Bruck

Links beach, Birsay, Orkney

The photograph above, shows an exceptionally low tide at Birsay, Orkney, on the Eve of the full moon last Sunday. We took advantage of this to help 'Bag the Bruck' - a community event held each Spring to collect litter off the beaches and across the Islands here in Orkney.

It was as usual a sobering experience with our seemingly clean and pristine beaches strewn with an array of litter washed ashore after the winter storms, a huge proportion of which was plastic, in particular plastic bottles.

The scale of marine pollution through litter across the Globe is huge and the consequences to wildlife devastating.
To put this into perspective, in Orkney, volunteers on shore collect only around 15% of this litter, with 15% remaining floating on the sea and a huge 70% sinking under the water. One Guillemot found dead, locally, was found to have ingested 152 pieces of plastic!
Litter is also commonly found here originating from across the world, washed in on the ocean currents and from passing shipping.

The message of the Crystal Earthworks is not just about Crystal Planting to help our beautiful yet increasingly energy challenged planet but also about acting with respect for the Earth and all her lifeforms in the first place.

We can all take action on this, not only by contributing to clean up events on our nearest beaches but by not dropping litter and encouraging others to also behave responsibly in this way. If you are interested in other ways of helping with this particular form of pollution
go to the 'New years Resolution for the Sea' clip in the 'links' section.

Thank you for you concern and help!

'Bagging the Bruck'