A message in a bottle, the remains of a catamaran, more than 200 fish boxes, a wheelie bin, one chemical toilet, hair rollers, footballs, a broom and a pack of Henry Winterman cigars are among a huge, historic haul of marine litter picked up from one of the remotest shorelines in the UK.

The Times 13/08/2008

Sadly, the message is no longer decipherable, but what makes the collection intriguing is that it is the first to take place in Britain's last wilderness area - the Knoydart peninsula, in the remote North West Highlands, which has no roads and can be accessed only by sea or by hiking for two days.

As such the litter represents a measure of the amount of pollution in the marine environment, and of how long that pollution endures.

“We were absolutely astonished at the sheer scale of rubbish on such a remote spot,” said Sandy Maxwell from the John Muir Trust, the conservation charity that helped to clear up the beaches.

“It is a graphic illustration of just how much marine litter is in the sea. This stretch of coastline on the south west of the Knoydart Peninsula must be a prime catchment area for boat traffic in and around the Minch.”

Over the past two months teams of volunteers from the trust and the Friends of Knoydart have recovered the equivalent of more than 300 large plastic sacks of rubbish from only two miles (3.5km) of coastline.

So inaccessible is the area that conservationists say that nothing could have been dropped from the land - it must all have come from the sea. There is also a certain historical interest, in that some of the litter is decades old. Among the haul are 50 to 60 drums filled with discarded oil, dating from the 1970s when fishermen would throw their old oil overboard.

The rubbish will be removed in the next few weeks. It is estimated that it will take a least ten trips with a landing craft to clear it.

The Marine Conservation Society estimates that beach litter has increased by as much as 80 per cent over the past ten years.

“It is sickening to think that even the most far-flung corners of this island are not free from litter and pollution,” Mr Maxwell said.

“Leaving the problem to coastal communities to clear up is not the answer; we need to see far stricter management of the seas in the upcoming Marine Bill.”

In 1999, after years of conflict with private landowners, the 60 or so residents bought the 17,000-acre Knoydart estate for £750,000.

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