Call to stop throwing rubbish in the Sound

PLEA AFTER 500TH TYRE IS REMOVED FROM THE SEA

- By CARL EVE

PLYMOUTH people are being warned that the Sound is not their rubbish bin, as a project to clear the precious waters of the National Marine Park and surrounding estuaries of a worrying amount of trash reached a milestone.

The 1000 Tyres Project, launched by marine archaeologists from the SHIPS project that is charting and exploring the over 600 wrecks in our waters, kept coming across tyres and junk, and so they charted them and hatched a plan to clean them up - not least because the layers of trash were hampering marine life to flourish on the sea bed and covering up important maritime history.

The work began in November 2020 and continues to this day, with the 500th tyre brought up on October 29 this year.

The 20kg tyre was found close the Breakwater Fort in the Sound and it highlights a tiny percentage of the detritus, waste and household rubbish which has been carelessly and callously tipped into the waters.

Mallory Haas is a maritime archaeologist and the Director of The SHIPS Project in Plymouth, which is a local history nonprofit, specialising in maritime heritage.

She and her colleagues have been working hard behind the scenes on cleanups and recovering marine litter over the summer.

The passionate team of volunteers have been working on their RIB Minerva on cleanups and raising as many tyres as possible.