Hello dear readers, and welcome to the new edition of the Voice for Arran! June kicks off, in all its warmth and liveliness, with the rainbow colours of Arran Pride on 3rd, and is followed soon after by the uplifting sounds of the Arran Folk Festival, now in its 27th year. In the middle of the month, Christine Bovill is performing a Music Arran Concert, and at Corrie Film Club, The Quiet Girl, “a deeply moving tale of rural Ireland”, is showing. There is also an Isle of Arran Horticultural Society spring meeting, as well as a round island beach clean to get involved with led by Arran Geopark.
Two themes, or materials, have caught my attention this issue – plastics and textiles. One of the things I enjoy about the Voice is the way that quite often the pieces that arrive for an issue make surprising connections, and thread together their own small piece of fabric, creating in the context of these pages a unique and momentary trail of life. So among the local news and events, we are taken on crafting journeys from Corriecravie to Canada, Strathnairn to Venice, Whiting Bay and Rutherglen, where ideas of creativity and friendship, land and the climate emergency are touched on.
World Environment Day takes place next week on 5th June, and this year’s focus is action on plastic pollution. Over the last week the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for Plastics has been meeting in Paris. It is the second in a series of meetings to develop an international, legally binding treaty which will hopefully be in place by the end of 2024. The UN has said that more than 430 million tonnes of plastic is produced annually, and plastic waste is set to almost triple by 2060. With about half ending up in landfill and under a fifth recycled, one of the actions the UN wants to accelerate is a transition to a circular economy.
In ‘Should Polluters Pay?’ we hear about a recent pilot project taking place in Skye and the Small Isles which aims to tackle marine litter (98 per cent is made up of plastic) along the Scottish coastline. In a large-scale operation supported by the Scottish Islands Federation and Marine Scotland, waste rope and nets have been gathered from beaches by volunteers in Skye, Eigg, Muck, and Canna, to be recycled into usable products. Camille Dressler of the SIF said: “Removing marine plastic from our islands environment is only part of the solution, however, the other issue being what to do with it, as sending it to landfill is not sustainable.”
The SIF is positive the project can be extended to many other beach clean groups throughout the Scottish Islands, and in the last month Arran Geopark has begun the incredible endeavour of a Big Beach Clean around Arran. Starting in Cladach, they are making their way round the island, hoping to remove as much litter from the coastline as possible this season. This is a huge task – they reported 80 kg in one collection – and so if you are on Arran, and willing and able to join the team for a day, they will welcome any help! We hope you enjoy the issue and wish you a wonderful month, Elsa
