Beach Litter returned to source in Holland by SAS

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A Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) campaigner has returned to Cornwall from the Netherlands having shown a Dutch Shipping Company the medical bags that SAS believe were lost from their boat the MV Endeavor and which have been washing up on Cornish and Devon beaches throughout January.

The containers the medical bags were held in were part of a cargo being carried by the MV Endeavor ship that was travelling between Ireland and Spain. The boat reported meeting bad weather near the Isles of Scilly last December and as a result 11 containers were lost overboard, believed to contain the medical bags, pouched tobacco, doors, non-toxic fibres and milk powder.

Baxters, the medical care company who shipped the bags on the MV Endeavor have reported to SAS that 56,000 bags were lost on the shipment - many, or all of which are on course to wash up on local beaches.

SAS, with support from the Dutch surfing community delivered the litter, to shipping company JR Shipping in the northern Dutch town of Harlingen on the Waddenzee and then held a 1 hour meeting with the company to discuss the incident and the wider issue of shipping container loss.

SAS are concerned by the increasing impact shipping containers lost at sea are having on the marine environment and those using the water for recreation and have last week written to the Shipping Minister for his assessment of the situation in UK waters. Lloyd's estimated worldwide container underway losses to have reached 10,000 - per year - in 2004.

Only last year over 100 containers spilled overboard when the MSC Napoli got into difficulties in local waters off Devon. £50million was spent on the clean up though not before it had a devastating affect on local wildlife with over 1000 sea birds affected by the disaster. It is quite possible that these see-through PVC medical bags will be mistaken by local wildlife for jellyfish and if swallowed could cause death or serious injury.

SAS are disappointed that JR Shipping are not yet in a position to assess what led to the containers being lost, nor were accepting responsibility for the cargo we have found. We hope to learn more shortly but for the time being it is highly likely we will see more bags being washed up.

Richard Hardy SAS Campaigns Director says: "It was good to confront the shipping company with this litter, but disappointingly whilst they did show sympathy for the impact this shipping litter is having on local beaches they were not in a position to either accept responsibility or explain what led to the container loss at this time. With lost shipping containers increasingly being noticed as responsible for beach litter incidents SAS would like to see what can be done within the shipping industry to reduce this problem and we hope today's action will see shippers address this issue with urgency".

Big thanks to the support we had in The Netherlands from Chris and Jelle at O'Neill Europe www.oneilleurope.com and 'Anneke' via www.surfholland.nl

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