Thanks to everyone who helped out on the 2007 Cramond beach clean ups.  Have a look at the link below to see PADI's write up, on a previous clean up.

http://www.projectaware.org/uk/english/news/01970013/

Project Aware courses

Deep Blue Scuba is a Project AWARE official partner and we all feel strongly about the protection of the marine environment. As the old cliché goes ‘information is power’ and for this reason we will be completing the Project AWARE speciality course.

This course will teach you about the plight of the marine environment and what you can do to help protect it. Just think, if each of you make small changes to your attitude towards and interaction with this environment then we will all have the opportunity to enjoy it for that much longer.

This course will cost £50 including manual and certification. All proceeds will go directly to the Project AWARE foundation.

Course will run in conjunction with the Cramond beach clean ups.

If you would like to further support Project AWARE please visit their web site www.projectaware.org and consider becoming a Project AWARE patron.

Beach Clean Up

From a 2007 Crammond clean up please see, below, the Marine Conservation Society release and a link to the Evening News article, on the plastic pellets metioned in Calum's release.

Tideline of cotton buds and plastic pellets at Cramond beach, Edinburgh.  

As part of the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) Adopt-a-Beach programme, keen Edinburgh residents helped MCS Scotland record all the litter from a 100m stretch of Cramond beach on Saturday 14th April 2007. All the information collected will be used by MCS to help turn the tide of marine litter.

Shrouded in North Sea mist, 27 keen volunteers collected a total of 1688 items on just 100m of Cramond beach, 53% of which were plastic items - predominantly small plastic pieces including crisp packets and sweetie wrappers - and 16% sanitary items, mainly cotton bud sticks (a staggering 176 in total – almost 2 per metre surveyed).  

Calum Duncan, MCS Scottish Conservation Manager said,  “Levels of litter on UK shores are 90% higher than a decade ago. The results of this Adopt-a-Beach event again highlight how much beach litter comes direct from our homes and day-to-day lives; Edinburgh has some great beaches yet many pollute them by leaving their litter behind or flushing sanitary items down their toilets. Simply by recycling or taking our rubbish home, and bagging & binning sanitary items when at home, we can all help to keep Scotland’s beaches clean and a pleasure to visit.”  

Also present in their hundreds on Cramond beach – too numerous to count individually – were blue, yellow and white plastic resin pellets that are the raw material for the plastics industry.  

Calum continued ‘Perhaps even more of a concern for marine life are these plastic resin pellets that are everywhere in our seas, where they get mistaken for fish eggs or plankton and plucked off the surface of the sea by birds such as fulmars. The high numbers at Cramond indicate that this is far from a historical problem. It is unacceptable that these pellets enter our waterways in such numbers - MCS would urge industry to work with the authorities to stop these pellets spilling into our rivers and seas.’

Evening news press release: http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=591132007

2008 clean up dates to be confirmed soon.

If you would like to help out or be kept informed of future events please call us on (0131) 220 3636 or send an email to info@deepbluescuba.co.uk for further details.