Plastic Pollution Of Seabed Has Consequences

Photo by acme

Every autumn a group of us pitch up at the Good Food Show Scotland, to sample the delicacies and wares of food producers from all over Scotland. It's a wonderful event that has become one of the highlights of my year. Even Gordon Ramsay is nice!

Last year, I found myself face-to-face with a langoustine. I have to explain, I hate food that looks back at me. This is mostly why I don't eat fish, unless it has been mashed up beyond all recognition. You could also argue that it shows a disconnect from our environment, that we can only stomach food if it comes out of a tin or packet and looks nothing like what it's supposed to be.

So anyway, the langoustine. We were given a demonstration on how to cook them (although ours were pre-cooked), then we had to get wired into this poor wee mite to get to the meat. Needless to say, mine decided to play hardball and half of the meat was left inside impenetrable shell.

Plastic seems to get inside those shells quite easily, though. It was found in the stomachs of a whopping great 83% of langoustines found off the coast of Largs.

In this case, it appears that the fishing industry is themselves to blame. Trawling for langoustine and scallops, the nets fray at the bottom and the critters eat it.

At what point does the industry decide this is a problem? When the government tells them their seafood is too polluted to sell? When the public refuses to buy it? Or is it head-in-the-sand time and let's pretend there's no problem?