Marine and coastal litter has multiple causes and is a challenging problem involving land and marine issues. Marine Scotland is leading the development of a Scottish marine litter strategy.
Action by Scottish bodies is currently focused on litter sourced from land or fishing vessels and litter found on the coast. The prevention and control of marine pollution from shipping is an issue reserved to the UK Government but the Scottish marine litter strategy will involve co-ordination on these issues.
Under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, Marine Scotland has specific requirements to meet regarding marine litter under Descriptor 10. The Descriptor states that "properties and quantities of marine litter do not cause harm to the coastal and marine environment".
To fulfil this descriptor, Marine Scotland Science needs to monitor the amount of litter in Scotland's seas. In order to do this, litter monitoring commenced in January 2009 with the Clean Seas Environment Monitoring Programme (CSEMP) cruise. During the trawling operations, any litter collected was recorded and as part of the programme this monitoring will continue on an annual basis.
In addition, Marine Scotland's research vessels the RV Alba na Mara and the RV Scotia, will begin routine marine litter monitoring on all other cruises in support of GES descriptor 10 from 2010 and 2011 resepectively.
The Scottish Government supports a range of initiatives and is taking action to help prevent and also deal with the consequences of litter.