Only paper, pee and poo should find its way down the loo.
That’s the message being highlighted by a biologist and conservationist from Charlestown, who has taken action after becoming disgusted by toilet waste strewn across her local village streams, rivers, beaches as well as in the sea.
Joanna McFarlane, 43, who runs local environmental education business Wild Planet Explorers and is a sea champion volunteer with the Marine Conservation Society, has created a community initiative called the 3P Pledge.
It asks every household to pledge to only put the 3Ps – pee, poo and paper – down the toilet.
It might seem obvious, but across Scotland people are flushing wet wipes, cotton bud sticks and nappies down the loo and much of this ends up on our beaches.
“Sadly, my local beach in Limekilns, where my child plays, regularly has wipes including biodegradable and flushable ones, cotton buds and sanitary items washing up there as a result of people putting them down the toilet,” said Joanna.
“This causes blockages and the overflow of toilet waste into the sea, further adding to the already shocking levels of plastic in our marine environment.”
She was prompted to launch the pledge after collecting 438 cotton buds in one small area during a local beach clean earlier this year.
Joanna has been working with local Scout groups to develop an award scheme which includes taking part in beach and river cleans to communicate MCS pollution campaign messages to young people.
Beavers and Scouts will be joining volunteers for a community council-organised litter pick at Burntisland beach and the local area from 10am to 1pm on Saturday November 18.
Members of the 11th Fife Scouts and 24th Kirkcaldy Beavers are working towards completing their Wild Planet Explorers 3P Pledge champion award.
Tara Proud, MCS sea champions manager in Scotland, will also be running a litter survey on Saturday.
She said: “These sanitary items aren’t just unpleasant for us to see but we know they cause real damage to the creatures who live in Scotland’s seas.”
To find out more about how to take the 3P Pledge, email joannamcfarlane@wildplanetexplorers.co.uk or visit www.facebook.com/wildplanetexplorers/.
Scotland’s dismal record
The amount of sewage-related debris – items which ends up on beaches after being wrongly flushed down the loo – was above the national UK on Scottish beaches in 2016.
There were 75 pieces per 100m of Scottish beaches cleaned, compared to 45 pieces nationally.
Wet wipes have gone up more than 1,900% on Scottish beaches in the last ten years with almost 27 found on every 100m of beach surveyed during the MCS Great British Beach Clean in 2016 – that is almost double the national average of 14 wet wipes per 100m.
Cotton buds sticks, another frequently flushed item that belongs in the bin not down the pan, are also found in quantities above the national average on Scottish beaches – 33 compared to 26 elsewhere in the UK.
