Ulva beach clean collects "half a double decker bus" worth of litter

Kerrie said: "When we choose an area of coastline to beach clean on, it is important that we are working together with the local community, and we have always been made to feel incredibly welcomed by the residents of Ulva.

"We were given the use of Craigaig bothy and that provided a cosy base at night after a long day beach cleaning in some pretty testing weather conditions.

"Due to the large amounts of items collected, Bakkafrost kindly allowed up to use their skip. Often it is the logistics of the disposal of rubbish in more remote areas which proves to be the biggest obstacle we face.

"Where possible, we try to take away items like fish boxes, buoys and good nets that can be repurposed or recycled."

One volunteer, Dr Pauline Thompson said: "What a lovely group of enthusiastic people. It’s a sociable way to get utterly filthy for a very good reason.

"We collected an amazing quantity of rubbish, roughly 3.5 tonnes. But if that doesn’t mean much, it was roughly half a double decker bus or a tiny fraction of Wales. Though probably quite a sizeable whale or two.

"Interesting to see that the composition of waste is quite different on the remote West coast. It was mostly fishing and fish farm waste. Quite a proportion was even from Canada.

"We hope that quite a lot of it was fairly old waste and it seems the beaches we did in previous years are getting better. So it’s nice to feel it does make a difference.

"But a big part of volunteering is the team. It’s so nice to share a meal, chat over work or a whisky, see otters, eagles, goats, swim in the sea in torrential rain, play the fiddle for some perplexed Highland coos and many more mad things..."

Next year the group plan to head back and tackle more of the coastline.

They’re also on Luing today, Thursday September 19 to do another clean.